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Copy 2 TH COMPLIMENTS OF 

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i mi NORFOLK & WESTERN RAILROAD COMPANY- 



The South's 



Redemption 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 









The South's 



Redemption. 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 



In 1S60 the Richest Part of the Country — In i8jo the Poorest- 
Tn 1880 Signs of Improvement — /// i88g Regain- 
ing the Position of i860. 



By RICHARD H. EDMONDS, 

Editor Manufacturers' Record. 



PUBLISHED BV 

THE MANUFACTURERS' RECORD CO. 

BALTIMORE, MD. 

1890. 



PRICE 2S CKNTS. 



• E. 



A WORD OF EXPLANATION. 



With a view to presenting a general summary of the industrial 

progress of the South from 1880 to 18S9, and to give a few facts as to the 

combination of advantages enjoyed by this section, the matter published 

in this pamphlet was prepared for the Manufacturers' Record, and 

appeared in that paper on December 21, 1889. The demand for that issue 

has been so large that it was decided to republish the article in pamphlet 

form. 

K. H. E. 



The South's Redemption. 



"The South is the coming El Dorado of American adventure. Mav 
the Almighty speed and guide her onward progress! " So wrote the 
Hon. William D. Kelley a few months ago, and every day brings forth 
new evidence to prove the correctness of his prediction, and to show 
that without a doubt the South is to be the richest country upon the 
globe. This is no visionary forecast. Many years will be required to 
enable the South to attain that position, but not many will have passed 
before it shall have been demonstrated that this future certainly awaits 
this section. The combination of advantages possessed by the South for 
the development of great wealth is not equaled in any other country in 
P^urope or America. In fact, here are combined the chief advantages 
and resources of nearly all other countries, without their most serious 
disadvantages. 

In climate, soil, mineral and timber wealth, in rivers, large and 
small, in a long seacoast, in an abundant rainfall, in healthfulness and in 
every other advantage that could be asked, nature seems to have done 
her best for this favored land. Every variety of soil, suitable for every 
branch of agriculture, can be found ready to yield an abundant harvest. 
The wealth in iron and coal is beyond estimate ; and, in fact, its extent is 
not yet half known or dreamed of, while no other section possesses such 
a wide range and such an abundant supply of other minerals needed in 
the arts and sciences. Of timber there is a seemingly almost unlimited 
supply, including nearly every variety of hardwoods used for wood-work- 
ing purposes. 

No one can carefully study the remarkable combination of resources 
which the South enjoys without being convinced that, in natural advan- 
tages, this section stands far ahead of any other country in the world ; 
and with the rapid progress now being made in the development of all 
these resources, the South is entering upon a period of prosperity greater 
than any part of this country has ever yet enjoyed. The conditions for 
this are far more favorable than in the West during the period of the 



4 THE SOUTH' S REDEMPTION '; 

most rapid growth of that region, and this prosperity, being free from 
fictitious inflation, will be permanent. 

At the close of the most disastrous war in the world's history, the 
South was in a deplorable condition — beyond the power of words to 
describe. Its business interests had been destroyed ; for four years it 
had been drained of everything that could help to maintain its armies ; 
it had been the battle-ground of millions of men ; its cities and its towns 
were in many places in ruins, its fields devastated and its fences 
destroyed ; blackened chimneys marked the sites where thousands of 
fine dwellings had stood ; its foremost men had been killed by the tens 
of thousands, and so gloomy was the outlook when the war ended that 
hundreds of thousands of the young and vigorous men and boys that 
were growing up left during the next few years for the West and South- 
west, and for the North ; the hundreds of millions of dollars that had 
been invested in slaves, just as the North invested its earnings in manu- 
factures, were wiped out of existence, though, of course, the slaves 
themselves remained there ; and, added to all these misfortunes, was a 
disorganized labor system. Then came political misrule and degrada- 
tion, against which it seemed hopeless to strive. This was only finally 
overcome scarcely twelve years ago. 

It is not extravagant to say that the actual money loss to the South 
tic mi the war aggregated at least #5, 000,000,000. The census of 1870 
showed the assessed value of property in the South for that year to be 
$2,100,000,000 less than in i860, but this, of course, does not represent the 
total losses. It does not cover the enormous sums spent in carrying on 
the war, the loss of so many thousands of the leading men by death and 
emigration, the chaos resulting from the war, and the disorganized con- 
dition of the whole labor system of the country. Taking all these things 
into consideration, $5,000,000,000 is a very conservative estimate of the 
South's loss financially. 

In 18S0 the total amount of capital invested in manufactures in the 
United States was $2,700,000,000. If we could conceive of some disaster 
that would have entirely blotted out every manufacturing enterprise in 
the whole country in 1880, and every dollar invested in them, the aggre- 
gate destruction of property would have been only about one-half as great 
as the losses entailed upon the South by the war. It is impossible to com- 
prehend what it would mean, if at one blow every manufacturing enter- 
prise in this country were wiped out of existence, and yet the sufferings 
and poverty which would follow such a disaster would hardly be equal to 
what the South had to face when it laid down its arms in 1865. These 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 5 

facts are mentioned that the South may receive proper credit for the 
amazing progress which has been made in the last few years. 

So rapid has been the industrial advancement of that section during 
the last eight or nine years, and more especially during the last four, that 
the business world is now seeking information about every phase of 
Southern growth, and of the South's resources. Capitalists in Europe 
and America are looking to the South as the field for investment ; manu- 
facturers of iron, cotton and lumber, realizing that the South is destined 
to control all of these and allied industries, are directing their attention 
to this section. The cry is no longer "Go West, young man," but "Go 
South." For the purpose of presenting a general view of what has 
actually been accomplished in the South, and not simply projected or 
talked of, this condensed summary has been compiled. Its only aim 
is to make plain by figures what has been done, and in connection there- 
with to give a few statements that will carry weight, because they are 
from the highest authorities, to show what are the possibilities of the 
South. 

In the early part of 1889 many prominent capitalists and manu- 
facturers went South to "spy out the land." Among the number 
were such men as Hon. Abram S. Hewitt and Hon. Edward Cooper, of 
the widely-known iron and steel firm of Cooper, Hewitt & Co. ; .Mr. 
Andrew Carnegie, the most extensive iron and steel manufacturer in 
America; Mr. Frederic Taylor, a leading New York banker ; Hon. H. 
B. Peirce, secretary of State of Massachusetts ; Hon. D. H. Goodell, 
governor of New Hampshire, and many others. These are mentioned 
because of the influence which their statements carry, and because they 
cannot be charged with being partial to the South. 

Letters were written to the Manufacturers' Record by a number 
of these gentlemen, giving their views upon the resources of the South 
and the progress made by that section in the last few years. Mr. Carnegie 
wrote that he regarded the South "as Pennsylvania's most formidable 
industrial enemy in the future." 

Mr. Taylor, who made a careful study of the situation in connection 
with Messrs. Hewitt and Cooper, stated that the South was a revelation 
to him. "It seemed to me," wrote Mr. Taylor, "that we traveled through 
a continuous and unbroken strain of what has been aptly termed the 
music of progress — the whirr of the spindle, the buzz of the saw, the roar 
of the furnace, and the throb of the locomotive." To the young men of 
the South he accords high praise for the work which they are doing, and 
to "the eager, earnest, restless, driving energy which seems to fill them." 



6 THE SOUTH' S REDEMPTION; 

Referring to the section through which they passed, he says: "The 
country through which we traveled was varied, and in many respects 
beautiful; its valleys fair as the vale of Cashmere, its mountain scenery 
wild at times as the Alps." "The South, to my mind, is only now on the 
threshold of its boom." " It has every possible advantage — everything, 
indeed, that God can give." "The New South has been built up by the 
indomitable energy and by the hard work of the Southern people them- 
selves," and finally, in closing this most striking letter, Mr. Taylor 
added, "to any young man, to-day, of pluck and grit with the world 
before him and his fortune to make, I should say, 'go South, young man, 
go South.' " 

Hon. Henry B. Peirce wrote : "I can add little to what has been so 
well said, and so many times said, of late, by Northern men who have 
been South, as to the resources and advantages of that wonderful sec- 
tion which includes Northern Alabama. I am thoroughly convinced 
that it is to be the great iron center of the world, and that the people will 
marvel at the growth which will be brought about during the next 
twenty-five years. The South will receive the greatest direct benefit, 
because of a revolution socially, politically, industrially and in an educa- 
tional way, which it will undergo in this process, a revolution so gradual 
and yet so fraught with immediate blessing that it will be accomplished 
without friction. I predict for the New South an era of prosperity which 
shall eclipse any which has ever been achieved in any other section of 
our great country, so remarkable for its successes in that line." 

Sir Lowthian Bell, of England, one of the highest authorities 
on iron manufacture, recently made the following statement : "Ulti- 
mately there seems nothing, so far as our present knowledge permits us 
to judge, to prevent these Southern States from becoming the cheapest 
iron-making centers in the Union." 

.Mr. J. C. Fuller, president of the United States Charcoal Iron Work- 
ers' Association, which is composed of all the manufacturers of charcoal 
iron in the country, while on a visit to the South, said : "I have to-dav 
witnessed what I have hitherto considered existed only in the imagina- 
tion of the enthusiast. I have seen coal, ore and limestone in almost 
fabulous deposits in so close proximity to one another as to undoubtedlv 
assure to Alabama the honor of becoming one of the foremost iron- 
producing regions of the world." 

To these strong statements 1 would add an extract from a letter in 
the Manufacturers' Record by Hon. William D. Kelley, of Pennsyl- 
vania, one of the foremost statesmen of the day; a man of broad views, 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 7 

who, though a lover of his own State, looks beyond its borders and sees 
in the development of the South the future grandeur of this country, 
and rejoices that whatever builds up this section adds to the prosperity 
and progress of the United States as one great country. Judge Kelley 
weighs his words carefully, and hence the following extracts are worthy 
of thoughtful attention. The most enthusiastic Southerner could not 
paint a more glowing picture of the South's advantages, the beauty of 
its scenery, the charm of its climate, the wealth of its mineral resources, 
and the possibilities of its future. 

"In the closing paragraph of my little book, 'The Old South and 
the New,'" wrote Judge Kelley, "two sentences have caused me much 
questioning. I say there 'wealth and honor are in the pathway of the 
Xew South,' and again, 'she is the coming El Dorado of American 
adventure.' My friends have thought me too sanguine ; but the States 
south of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi, with their half million 
square miles ot ana, contain a wealth great enough for a continent — a 
wealth so vast, so varied in its elements and character, so advantageously 
placed for development, that these States alone can sustain a population 
far greater than the population of the United States to-day. Their 
products would be so different from those of other portions of the 
country as to afford the most profitable exchange, advantageous to all. 
And it is in these States that we must find the new and greater market 
for Northern surplus, whether that surplus be in the shape of accumu- 
lated labor of the past — that is to say, capital — or the future productions 
of labor, or of labor itself, because in these Southern States, more than 
elsewhere, the natural conditions of success exist. As to the rapidity 
with which it can be done, the past growth of the West furnishes the 
best answer. It was the building of an empire in the West that 
relieved and enriched the East as well as the West. The enormous 
energies, the 'plant' used in that task, unparalleled in the magnitude 
of the work and the greatness of the reward to all, is now seeking a 
new field of investment, and there is no spot on earth sufficient for it 
and within its reach but the South. 

" I have traveled much in the South since the war, and have always 
been keenly interested in every step of progress she has made, and 
eager to learn all I could of Southern resources and advantages. I 
have urged my friends to go there, and my son is there now, with all 
that he has, embarked in a manufacturing enterprise. I do not consider 
that there ever existed in the West, great as its wealth is, nor in any 
other portion of the country, anything like the natural wealth of the 



S THE SOUTH' S REDEMPTION ; 

South. A very large part of the South is blessed with a climate un- 
excelled, if equaled, elsewhere in the world. As to the mountainous 
region of the South, it is richer in natural wealth and in advantages for 
the development of that wealth; it has a finer climate, better water, and 
higher condition of health than any region of which I have any knowl- 
edge, and is, withal, one of the most beautiful regions in the world." 

Equally as enthusiastic statements made by other eminent authorities 
could be given almost without limit. Every honest investigator of the 
South's advantages freely admits the truth of what has been claimed 
for that section. 

Blessed with such marvellous advantages, what has the South 
accomplished ? is a question which the world has a right to ask. It is 
needless to enter into any discussion of the reasons why the South did 
not undergo industrial development prior to the war. Her people pre- 
ferred to give their attention to agriculture. But it may be well to call 
attention to the fact that when the census of i860 was taken the South 
ranked very high in wealth as compared with the rest of the country, 
showing that she was not slothful in the business of money-making. In 
that year the assessed value of property in Georgia was greater than 
the combined wealth of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Rhode 
Island. South Carolina was #6S,ooo,ooo richer than Rhode Island and 
New Jersey. Mississippi outranked Connecticut by $160,000,000. In the 
assessed value of property per capita, Connecticut stood first in rank ; 
Rhode Island, second ; South Carolina, third ; Mississippi, fourth ; 
Massachusetts, fifth ; Louisiana, sixth ; Georgia, seventh ; District of 
Columbia, eighth ; Florida, ninth ; Kentucky, tenth ; Alabama, eleventh ; 
Texas, twelfth ; New Jersey, thirteenth ; Maryland, fourteenth ; Arkansas, 
fifteenth ; Virginia, sixteenth, and Ohio, seventeenth. New York and 
Pennsylvania were also far behind the South in the amount of wealth in 
proportion to population, the former State ranking twenty-second, and 
the latter thirtieth. By 1870 there was a startling change. The assessed 
value of property in New York and Pennsylvania alone was greater 
than in the whole South ; Massachusetts had just one-half as much 
wealth as the fourteen Southern States combined. South Carolina, 
which in i860 had been third in rank in wealth in proportion to the 
number of her inhabitants, had dropped to be the thirtieth ; Georgia, 
from the seventh to the thirty-ninth ; Mississippi, from the fourth place 
to the thirty-fourth ; Alabama, from the eleventh to the forty-fourth ; 
Kentucky, from tenth to twenty-eighth, and the other Southern States 
had gone down in the same way, while the Northern and Western States 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 9 

had steadily increased in wealth. In i860 the assessed value of property 

in South Carolina, according to the census, was $489,000,000, while the 

combined values in Rhode Island and New Jersey aggregated $421,- 

000,000, or $68,000,000 less than South Carolina's. In 1870 the combined 

values in Rhode Island and New Jersey amounted to $868,000,000, and the 

value in South Carolina was $183,000,000. Thus, while South Carolina 

had $68,000,000 more assessed property in i860 than these two States, it 

had in 1870 $685,000,000 less than they had. In i860 the total assessed 

value of property in the United States was $12,000,000,000, and of this 

the South had $5,200,000,000, or 44 per cent.; in 1870 the total for the 

country was $14,170,000,000, and of this the South had only $3,064,000,000, 

or 22 per cent. 

The assessed value of property in the South, as already stated, was 

$2,100,000,000 less in 1870 than in i860, while in the rest of the country 

there was an increase of over $4,000,000,000, during that decade. Not 

until about 1876 were there any decided indications of a change for the 

better in the South. By 1879-80 an improvement was seen, and it is since 

that time that the most marked progress has been made. That this 

progress has been phenomenal, and especially when the poverty of this 

section at that time is taken into account, the statistics given in this paper 

will certainly make plain. A comparison of the assessed value of 

property, by States, in 1S80 and 1889, gives the following : 

1880. 1889. Increase. 

Maryland 5459,187,408 -"4;-. 398, 380 $18,210,972 

Virginia 303,997,613 *344, 169,473 40,171,860 

North Carolina ...... 169,916,907 217,000,000 47,083,093 

South Carolina 129,551,624 145,280,343 15,728,343 

Georgia 251,424,651 380,289,314 128,864,663 

Florida 31,157,846 93,800,000 62,642,154 

Alabama 139,077,32s 242,197,531 103,120,203 

Mississippi 115,130,651 157,830,431 42,699,780 

Louisiana 177,096,459 226,392,28s 49,295,827 

Texas 311,470,736 710,000,000 398,529,264 

Arkansas 91,191,653 166,000,000 74,808,347 

Tennessee 211,768,43s 325,118,636 113.350,19s 

West Virginia 146,991,740 183,013,737 36,021,997 

Kentucky 375-473.041 551,676,267 176,203,226 

Total $2,913,436,095 $4,220,166,400 $1,306,729,927 

*iSS8. 

The census report of 1879-80 estimated that the assessed value of 
property in the South was only 41 per cent, of the true value. On this 
basis the true value of property in the South in 1880 was $7,105,917,300, 
and the value at present $10,293,088,700 — a gain of over $3,000,000,000. 

The history of many Southern towns during the last five years re;ul> 
almost like a romance. While Birmingham, Chattanooga, Anniston, 



io THE SOUTH' S REDEMPTION ; 

Roanoke, Dallas, Fort Worth and many of the most widely advertised 
industrial centers have grown with a rapidity that is almost beyond 
belief, other towns and cities all through the South have kept well up in 
the march of progress. Louisville, Atlanta, Nashville, Richmond, Char- 
leston, Savannah, Columbus, Knoxville, Memphis, Macon, Augusta, and 
others, have not fallen much behind the most rapidly growing places. 
In 1SS0 Knoxville had 9,000 inhabitants, and the assessed value of its 
property was $3,485,000; now its population is estimated at 42,000, and the 
value of its property is $9,500,000. Louisville has increased its population 
from 123,000 to 227,000, and the capital invested in manufactures irom 
$21,900,000 to $35,000,000. Nashville had a population of 46,000 in t88o, 
and now has about 110,000. Columbus, Ga., which now has $5,300,000 
invested in manufacturing interests, had only $2,400,000 in its manufac- 
tures in 1880. Charleston, S. C, which is not much heard of as a manu- 
ufacturing center, has $7,340,000 invested in manufactures, against 
$1,824,000 in 1880. Richmond, New Orleans and others of the older cities 
have made similar progress. 

In the newer, or what is known as the booming towns, the gain in 
population and capital employed in manufacturing has been astonishing. 
Birmingham and Chattanooga are so well known that it is almost need- 
less to mention their history. Anniston, Ala., which in 1880 had probably 
1,200 inhabitants, has now about 12,000. Bessemer, in the same State, 
which had no existence prior to 1887, now has several million dollars 
invested in furnaces, rolling mills and kindred enterprises, with 4,000 or 
5,000 people living where a forest stood in 1887. Bessemer already lias 
five completed furnaces and two more under construction ; and the output 
of its furnaces during 1890 will, it is expected, be fully 240,000 tons, which 
is but 50,000 tons less than the whole State of Alabama made in 1887. 
Sheffield was a cotton field in 1885 ; its five furnaces alone can now fur- 
nish nearly as much freight in tons to the railroads as the cotton crop of 
the entire South. And to its great pig-iron producing interests it is 
adding diversified enterprises, such as a $200,000 rolling mill, $200,000 
railroad machine shops, and a large number of other enterprises that 
assure the rapid growth of the place. Roanoke, with its 17,000 people, 
was Big Lick with 300 inhabitants eight years ago. Heretofore Alabama 
has led in iron development, but now Virginia is going to enter the race, 
and new furnaces and other iron enterprises are to be built at Buena 
Vista, Waynesboro, Salem, Radford, Pulaski, Max Meadows, Graham, 
Richlands and other points. The whole country tributary to the Norfolk 
iS: Western Railroad, which includes the valley of Virginia down to Bristol, 
Tenn., is moving forward rapidly. 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. H 

Two years ago Florence, Ala., was one of the most attractive towns 
in the South as a place of residence ; visitors grew enthusiastic over it, 
and its inhabitants, who numbered about 2,000, thought that no place in 
America equaled it for attractiveness ; but it was simply a beautiful town, 
and few then looked upon it as destined to be a great city. Its history 
for eighteen months tells the story of the South's possibilities. A year 
and a half ago a few energetic Southerners, charmed with it as a place of 
residence, and realizing its unsurpassed advantages for the manufacture 
of iron, and the products of iron, cotton and wood, undertook the work 
of building a manufacturing city. In the short time that has elapsed they 
have secured the establishment of thirty or more new enterprises, which 
have an aggregate cash capital of several million dollars. Nearly all are 
in operation, and the buildings for the rest are under construction. There 
are two furnaces (one now in blast), a $100000 wagon factory, a $300,000 
hardware factory, and two cotton mills (one in operation and one of 
53,000 spindles under construction), and other factories large and small, 
are to be built at once. These enterprises will employ over 6,000 hands. 
This has all been done without any real estate speculation ; there has 
been no unhealthy " booming," but simply energetic work on the part ot 
a few people, and from 2,000 its population has increased to probably 
10,000 with still more rapid growth in the future now assured. Florence 
is to be commended for the successful efforts made to secure diversity in 
its manufactures. In this respect its growth has been remarkable. In- 
stead of centering all attention upon cotton or iron, it has sought to 
establish a wide range of industries, including almost every line of man- 
ufacture from the making of paper-boxes or suspenders to the production 
Of pig iron. This illustrates what the South can do, and is but a sample 
■of what other places are doing and will do in the future. 

Less than a year ago Fort Payne was an unknown country village. 
New Englanders took hold of it, and inside of that brief period have in- 
vested several million dollars there in building an industrial town, and 
now furnaces, large steel works, hardware factory and other plants are 
under construction. Several thousand busy, progressive people, mainly 
New Englanders, are vigorously pushing Port Payne to a leading position 
among the industrial cities of the South. 

Six months ago the name of Middlesborough, Ky., could not have 
been found upon even the latest railroad maps. It was known to a 
comparatively few as the place which English capitalists, including many 
of the foremost iron and steel makers of Great Britain, had selected as 
Ihe site for building a city on a very broad basis, backed by an apparently 



12 THE SOUTH- S REDEMPTION '; 

unlimited supply of money. Of its advantageous location at Cumberland 
Gap, where railroads must of necessity meet, and where minerals and 
timber are in sufficient quantity to supply the most extensive demands of 
the future, it is needless to speak. Within the last three or four months 
these facts have been given such wide publicity that they are already well 
known. Suffice it to say, that for several years these English capitalists 
had been quietly, but vigorously, at work. Their experts had thoroughly 
explored the mineral and timber resources of the surrounding country, 
and over 60,000 acres of picked lands had been purchased. Every 
arrangement had been made for the establishment of gigantic enterprises 
before a railroad had reached the place, and before much publicity had 
been made of their plans regarding the building of a city. Where less 
than twenty-five people lived half a year ago, there are now, it is 
estimated, fully 4,000, and Middlesborough is growing as few towns have 
ever grown. Like Florence, Fort Payne, and other Southern towns that 
have grown so rapidly, Middlesborough's progress is solid and substantial, 
founded upon the utilization of the unlimited stores of coal and iron, and 
the great forests of virgin timber tributary to that place. Over #18,000,000 
have already been invested or contracted for investment in the building 
of railroads, and in the establishment of many and varied industries. 
Middlesborough is but the visible sign of the faith which the foremost 
iron and steel makers of England have in the possibilities of cheap iron 
and steel production in the most favored sections of the South. 

Florence, the development of which has been mainly in the hands of 
Southern men, though Northern capitalists have recently invested over a 
million dollars there; Fort Payne, "The New England City of the 
South," which is wholly the work of New England men and money, and 
Middlesborough, which is the offspring of English capital and brains, but 
which is now receiving a full measure of American energy and wealth, 
are three types of the combined forces that are now at work in the South. 
As such, their progress is of peculiar interest. 



THE IRON INTERESTS OF THE SOUTH. 

RAPID GROWTH BASED ON SOLID FOUNDATION — THE MANUFACTURE OF 
BESSEMER IRON AND STEEL. 

The growth in the manufacture of iron in the South during the last 
few years has been so rapid as to attract universal attention. While 
other industries have made astounding advances, the iron business has 
commanded the widest attention, and has been more generally dis- 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 13 

cussed than any other industry. This is not surprising, when it is 
remembered that it was but a few years ago that the iron makers of the 
North ridiculed, first, the possibility that the South could ever become 
a large iron producer, and when this fallacy was overthrown, then the 
idea that the South would become a serious competitor with Pennsyl- 
vania in the iron trade of the country was persistently claimed to be 
absurd. 

During the severe depression in the iron business in 1884 and 1885, 
when many Northern furnaces were compelled to go out of blast, 
because they could not make iron and sell it at the prices then ruling 
without a heavy loss, Alabama and Virginia furnaces commenced to 
invade Eastern markets more freely than ever before. It is of more 
than passing interest to note that the South 's pig iron production 
attracts the greatest attention during periods of severe depression and 
low prices. The fact that Southern furnaces continue to run through 
such periods, and even to make money, while so many Northern fur- 
naces are forced to blow out, is an argument to which there is no reply. 
The South's percentage of the total production of pig iron is greater 
during years of dullness than in active times, and this is the best of all 
tests, for when business is brisk and prices high, nearly all furnaces, 
even though many may be badly located, can continue in operation. 
This point was illustrated during the depression of 1884-85. In 1880, 
the South made 397,301 tons of pig iron ; it 1885 it made 712,835 tons — a 
gain of 315,534 tons. Three States — Virginia, Alabama and Tennessee — 
which, in 1880, produced 178,006 tons of pig iron, in 1885 produced 
552,419 tons — an increase of 374,413 tons, or 139,958 tons more than the 
net increase in the United States, the production in the whole country 
outside of these three States being 234,455 tons less in 1885 than in 1880. 
This condition of affairs was in part repeated during 1888. The 
extremely low prices then prevailing caused the blowing out of many 
Northern furnaces, while Southern furnaces were pushed to their utmost 
capacity, new ones blowing in as fast as completed ; and out of the 
profits made during even the dull times of 1887 and 1888 a number of 
other furnaces are being built. 

In 1884-85, when the shipments of Southern iron to Eastern markets 
first commenced to attract much attention, but few Northern iron makers 
believed it possible for Southern furnaces to ship their iron East, paying 
from $3 to #5 per ton freight, with any profit, and it was repeatedly 
stated that it was only a question of time how long they could stand 
what was said to be a heavy loss on every ton thus shipped. Month 



14 THE SOUTH' S REDEMPTION ; 

after month passed by, and Southern furnaces, instead of failing, con- 
tinued to present every evidence of prosperity, while the men who had 
had the longest experience in the business, and who it was said must 1 it- 
losing money, went on increasing their production by building new 
furnaces. This was a phase of the matter which the skeptics could 
not quite understand, but still they were not fully converted, and various 
excuses were found to account for the new furnace projects. For a 
while they credited them to " land speculations," " corner lots," "town 
booming," and such things, declaring that it was a great bubble which 
would soon be pricked. About that time, Mr. Samuel Thomas, of the 
Thomas Iron Company, of Pennsylvania, which is usually supposed to 
virtually control prices on all Pennsylvania iron, so extensive are its 
operations, after carefully investigating for himself the resources of 
Alabama, commenced the erection in that State of one of the finest 
furnace plants in America. And now, after proving by actual work the 
profits of iron making there, he is building another furnace and an 
immense rolling mill, and rumor (which in this case is doubtless correct) 
says that he will build still other furnaces until his Alabama plant is 
one of the largest in America. His locating in Alabama was an argu- 
ment against which the Northern skeptics could bring nothing. The 
fact that the leading iron maker of Pennsylvania, after close investiga- 
tion, was willing to back his judgment as to the future of Alabama iron. 
to the extent of a million dollars, convinced the iron men of the North 
that it would be folly to attempt to ignore the possibilities of the South 
in this direction any longer. 

The development of the South's iron interests has not been confined 
simply to the making of pig iron. Not content to make pig iron alone, 
to be shipped North and there turned into the finished product and 
re-shipped South in the shape of stoves, agricultural implements, car 
wheels, iron pipe, and the thousand and one other articles into the 
manufacture of which pig iron enters, the South is very wisely diversify- 
ing its industries by preparing to consume at home the product of its 
own furnaces, and so great is the progress in this direction that it is 
already producing almost every variety of goods, from pins and tacks 
to locomotives. The double freight and the attendant expenses are 
thus saved, while Southern labor receives the benefit of the work 
afforded in these varied industries. A large amount of Southern iron 
will continue to find a market in New York, Pennsylvania and other 
Eastern States, as well as in the West, and transportation companies 
will continue to increase their facilities for this business. But while this 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 15 

is true, there will be an ever-increasing home consumption of iron. 
Rolling mills, pipe works, car wheel and axle works, foundries and 
machine shops, are multiplying so rapidly that instead of the South 
being dependent upon other sections for the product of such works, it 
will soon invade the North and West, not simply with pig iron, but with 
the finished goods. 

According to the United States census report of 1880 on iron and 
steel manufacture, prepared by Mr. James M. Swank, secretary of the 
American Iron and Steel Association, and a noted expert, "the average 
distance over which all the domestic iron ore which is consumed in the 
blast furnaces of the United States is transported is not less than 400 
miles, and the average distance over which the fuel which is used to 
smelt it is transported is not less than 200 miles. From the ore mines of 
Lake Superior to the coal of Pennsylvania is one thousand miles. Con- 
nellsville coke is taken 600 miles to the blast furnaces of Chicago and 
750 miles to the blast furnaces of St. Louis." About one million tons of 
ore are now annually imported at Baltimore and Philadelphia from 
Spain, Africa, the Island of Elba and Cuba, and shipped hundreds of 
miles into the interior to the furnaces of Pennsylvania. 

Against this long transportation of ore and fuel to Northern furnaces 
averaging 400 and 200 miles respectively, with the heavy freight attend- 
ant upon it, the furnaces of the South have the advantage of ore, coal 
and limestone almost at their very doors, and in such close proximity 
that these three materials can truthfully be said to be side by side. 
There is no expensive transportation to bring them together at the fur- 
nace, for nature has seemingly done her best for this favored territory, 
as though she intended that here should be the most advantageous 
point in all the world for the production of pig iron. 

In many places in the iron regions of the South the furnaces are 
literally surrounded by inexhaustible supplies of ore, coal and limestone, 
the transportation in some cases being but a few hundred yards. This 
point is enforced in a letter from Mr. R. W. Raymond, a well-known min- 
ing engineer, and secretary of the American Institute of Mining Engineers. 
After investigating the advantages of the Birmingham district, Mr. Ray- 
mond wrote : 

"Those who had not previously visited the district were impressed 
with its remarkable advantages for the production of cheap iron. The 
ore, coking coal and excellent limestone are in contiguity, and it is 
figured that the total cost of material at furnace in the Birmingham dis- 
trict will average about $1.12% per ton of iron produced, as against $4 
and #5 in the Lehigh and Schuylkill valleys." 



1 6 THE SOU TIES REDEMPTION ; 

Here is an admitted difference of between nearly $3 and $4 a ton, 
and in many cases the margin is still wider. 

As to the cost per ton of iron making in the South, there are so many 
contingencies to be taken into account that exact figures cannot be given, 
and the writer prefers not to use Southern estimates, which might be 
charged with being biased, but to take the testimony of Northern experts. 
Conservative authorities have put the average as at least $5 less than the 
average in Pennsylvania. Mr. R. P. Rothwell, C. E. M. E., of New York, 
editor of the Engineering and Mining Journal, a high authority in metal- 
lurgical matters, after a close personal investigation, estimated that the 
total cost of making iron in certain parts of Alabama, exclusive of inte- 
rest on capital or profit on mining would be about #8.30, and even this he 
said had been "bettered," and enough had been done to show that iron 
could be made there at a figure not exceeding $8 a ton, every expense 
included. In Mr. Rothwell's estimate he allowed for ij£ tons of coke at 
$2 a ton or $3.50 for fuel, but since then it has been demonstrated by 
actual furnace work that it is possible for one ton of coke to produce a 
ton of iron, a saving the importance of which can be readily understood, 
but even if this should not prove possible at all furnaces or on an aver- 
age, it is undoubtedly true that a considerable reduction can be made 
from the i^-ton estimate. 

The Iron Age, the standard Northern authority on iron matters, a 
year ago, after its editor had spent some time in Alabama, admitted that 
iron is made there as low as $10.50 to $11 a ton, "including fair allowances 
for interest on plant, a moderate royalty charge on ore and coal for ex- 
haustion of lands, and a safe margin for ordinary repairs, replacement, 
taxes and cost of water." "Accepting," says the Age, "the higher figure, 
and making allowances for freights, commissions and insurance, we find 
that the furnace men of the Birmingham district can lay down their iron 
for the average of the grades without suffering any pressure at $15.75 to 
$16 at New York ; at $16 to $16.50 at New England points and at $15.50 to 
$16 at Cincinnati. Some of them can do it more cheaply, but at the 
figures named, with plants run fairly well and producing about 2,000 to 
2,200 tons a month, as the majority of them do, the makers in the district 
would meet the market without suffering. In other words, when standard 
irons are selling at tidewater at $15.50, $16.50 and $17.50 respectively for 
gray forge, No. 2 and No. 1, Southern irons could still hold their own." 
And then, after contrasting some of the advantages of the two sections, 
the Age closes with the following very strong statement : "But dealing 
with the industry as it exists to-day, a candid survey of the situation will 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 17 

lead to the admission that if it should come to a struggle between the 
furnaces in eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York, which 
produce elderly foundry brands tor the open market, and the makers of 
the South, no inconsiderable number of the former would be unable to 
survive very long. 

Mr. Andrew Carnegie, the leading iron and steel maker of America, 
after his visit to the South last winter wrote a letter to the Manufacturers,' 
Record, in which he said of Alabama furnaces : "#10 per ton cost for 
their foundry iron is a liberal estimate with good management, and for a 
series of years some of the best located and best managed furnaces may 
be able to do even better than this figure. But as far as I could see, the 
average cost of the district must be in the neighborhood of $10, every- 
thing counted. The ability to manufacture at this price must give the 
Southern manufacturers a large market for their pig iron. When the 
next stage comes, and they seek to manufacture the pig iron into more 
advanced forms, I believe it will be done by converting pig into steel by 
means of Bessemer and open hearth basic processes." This admission 
that the "average cost, everything counted," is about $10 a ton for foun- 
dry iron, will undoubtedly carry great weight, but there are furnaces in 
Alabama which make iron at probably not over $8.50 a ton. 

In the early part of [889, Mr. Abram S. Hewitt visited the South and 
expressed himself very freely and very enthusiastically over the future of 
its iron interests, and in an interview published in England during his 
visit there, said that it was possible to make iron in the South at #7.50 
a ton. 

In writing of the South's iron interests a few years ago, Col. A. K. 
McClure, of Philadelphia, said : * * * * * ''It is idle for 
Pennsylvania and other great iron and coal-producing States to close 
their eyes to the fact that we have reached the beginning of a great 
revolution in those products. No legislation, no sound public policy, no 
sentiment can halt such a revolution when the immutable laws of trade 
command it ; and the sudden tread of the hordes from the Northern 
forests upon ancient Rome did not more certainly threaten the majesty of 
the mistress of the world than does the tread of the iron and coal diggers 
of Alabama threaten the majesty of the Northern iron and coal fields. 
* * * These lessons come upon us plain as the noon-day sun, 
and it is mid-summer madness not to read them understandingly. We 
cannot war with destiny ; we cannot efface the beneficent gifts of Him 
who leads the waters to the sea' and sends them back in the dews and 
rains of Heaven. Alabama has been gifted far beyond even our boasted 



18 THE SOUTH' S REDEMPTION ; 

empire of Pennsylvania, and only the Southern sluggard has hitherto 
given the race to the North. Now there is a New South, with new 
teachings, new opportunities, new energies, and manifestly a new destiny, 
and the time is at hand when a large portion of the great iron and coal 
products of the country which enter competing centers will be supplied 
cheaper from Alabama than from any State in the North. How Pennsyl- 
vania will solve the problem I do not assume to decide, but the logical 
result would be the transfer of the portion of the iron industry that can 
best prosper here (in the South) from the North to the South, just as the 
spinning and weaving of cotton must soon come to the cotton fields, and 
the better water-power and climate which they furnish." 

The iron makers of the South having established this industry upon 
such a broad and solid basis as to fully convince the entire business 
world of its permanency and magnitude, have for many months been 
devoting very close study to the opportunities for steel making. They 
are not content to confine their operations to producing pig iron and 
leave to the North and the West the more desirable business of manu- 
facturing steel. For a while it was claimed that the South had no ores 
suitable for making Bessemer iron and steel, and would only be able to 
engage in the manufacture of basic steel. Recent events have proved 
that this is a mistake. There are practically unlimited supplies of high- 
grade Bessemer ores in different parts of the South, and arrangements 
have lately been matured for utilizing them on a large scale. The first 
company actively organized to build a Bessemer plant south of Mary- 
land was the North Carolina Steel & Iron Co., which was formed on 
November 30th, 1889, with a capital stock of $1,000,000. This company 
is composed of a number of leading capitalists, and some prominent 
officers in Southern railroads. It purchased extensive Bessemer ore prop- 
erties, besides several thousand acres of land at Greensboro, N. C, and at 
this place expects to build furnaces to make Bessemer iron, and follow these 
with a steel rail mill, rolling mill, &c. It is a conservative state- 
ment to say that North Carolina has Bessemer ores in sufficient quantity 
to be practically inexhaustible for generations to come, though every 
Bessemer furnace in the country were to draw its ore supplies from that 
State. The future of the State as an iron-producing territory is exceed- 
ingly bright. The building of new railroads is opening up the mountain- 
ous regions where Bessemer ores are found in such abundance, and the 
nearness of these ores to the Kentucky and Virginia coking coal fields 
promises to give this territory exceptional advantages for producing 
cheap iron and steel. 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 19 

While greater attention has been attracted to the iron interests of 
Alabama than to those of any other Southern State, so much so that 
Alabama has steadily boasted that it could produce iron at a lower cost 
than any other section of the country, it is probable that there are 
favored points in other Southern States that can make iron as cheaply as 
the most favored spot in Alabama. In Western North Carolina, East 
Tennessee, Southwest Virginia and Southeastern Kentucky there are 
iron ores sufficient in quantity and quality to meet the requirements of 
the most exacting furnaceman. At many points the ores are of very 
high grade, suitable for Bessemer steel, and the ease and cheapness of 
mining them, and their proximity to the best coking coal fields in the 
country, the Cumberland Gap and Pocahontas regions, unite to make it 
possible to produce Bessemer steel at a price that will mean as great a 
revolution in the steel trade of the country as the development of Bir- 
mingham's iron interests effected in the pig iron trade. It is probably 
in this territory that the most marked activity will be seen in iron and 
steel matters during the next few years. The investigations of American 
and English experts opened the eyes of the country to the advantages 
possessed by Middlesborough, Ky., on the western side of this territory, 
for iron and steel making based on the abundance of high-grade ores 
within a few miles of the great coking coal districts of Southeastern 
Kentucky and Southwestern Virginia. On the eastern limit of this great 
region is the Bessemer steel enterprise at Greensboro, N. C. Between 
these two points there are vast resources of iron ore in close proximity 
to coking coals, and throughout that entire section there is great activity 
in the development of the iron interests. 

In Llano county, Texas, there is Bessemer ore of remarkably high 
quality, analyzing in some cases 70 and 71 per cent, metallic iron. Inves- 
tigations have been in progress for some time to determine the quantity, 
and these reports are so favorable, both as to quantity and quality, that 
arrangements are being made for very extensive operations for mining 
the ore, and also for converting it into iron and steel both at Llano and 
Denison. Members of the Standard Oil Company have been making 
careful investigations in this section, having in view the erection of large 
steel works at Denison, good coking coal being found near that town. 

The development of the coal, iron and steel interests of Carolina, 
Virginia and Kentucky will in noway hurt Alabama or retard its growth, 
except by drawing some of the capital and energy that otherwise might 
seek the latter State. There is room enough for a rapid progress of all 
parts of the South, as shown elsewhere in this pamphlet. 



20 THE SOUTH' S REDEMPTION; 

The production of pig iron in net tons in the South for each year from 

1880 to 1889, according to the official report of the American Iron and Steel 

Association was as follows : 

States. 1880. 1881 1882. 1883. 1884. 18S5. 1886. 1887.. 1S88. 1 

Maryland 61,437 48,756 54,524 49.153 27,342 17,299 30,502 37,427 17.606 33,847 

Virginia 29,934 83,711 87,731152,907157,483163,782156,250175,715 197.396 251,356 

North Carolina Soo 1,150 435 1,790 2,200 3,640 2,400 2,898 

Georgia 27,321 37,404 42,364 45,364 42,655 32,924 46.490 40,947 39,397 27.559 

Alabama 77,190 98,081 112,765 172,465 189,664 227,438 283,859 292,762 449,492 791,425 

Texas 2,500 3,000 1,321 2.381 5,140 1,843 3,250 4,383 . 4.544 

West Virginia.. 70,33s 66,409 73,220 88,398 55,231 69,007 98,61s 82,311 95,259 117,900 

Kentucky 57,7°S 45,973 66,522 54.629 45,052 37.553 54,344 41.907 5 6 ,79° 42,518 

Tennessee 70,873 87,406 137,602 133,963 134,597 161,199 199,166 250,344 267,931 294,655 

Southern States 397,301 451,540 577,275 699,260 657,599 712,835 875,179 929,436 1,132,858 1,566,702 
r 1SS0. 1881. 1SS2. 1883. i^ s ; 

Total Whole Country.... 3^95,414 4,641,564 5,178,122 5,146,972 4o 

j 1885. 1886. 1S87. 18S8. 1889. 

(4,529,869 6,365,328 7,187,206 7,269,62s S, 

The most striking fact in connection with the output of iron in the 
two sections is brought out by comparing the production of 1887 and 
1888, two years of dullness in the iron trade, and, as already said, it is 
during such periods as these that the South's advantages are made 
the more apparent. In 1S87 the South produced 929,436 tons of iron, and 
in 1888 1,132,858 tons, a gain of 203,422 tons, while the North, which made 
6,257,770 tons in 1887, made 6,136,770 tons in 1S88, a decrease of 121,000 
tons. Presented in tabular form this makes the following showing : 

1887 tons. 1888 tons. 

Production of Iron in the South 929,436 1,132,858 Increase, 203,422 

In the rest of the country 6,257,770 6,136,770 Decrease, 121,000 

As suggestive as these figures are, the margin of difference in the 
amount of iron produced in the two sections will rapidly narrow, as year 
after year the South, which is just on the threshold of its iron develop- 
ment, increases the number of its furnaces, while in the North main old 
furnaces are being abandoned and comparatively few new ones are being 
built. The production of iron in the South jumped from 1.132,858 tons in 
1888, to 1,566,702 tons in 1889. A number of large new furnaces went 
into blast late in the year, and hence their output will be more noticeable 
in 1890, during which year the South will probably produce over 
2,000,000 tons of iron. 

In the ten years from 1880 to 1889 the South increased its iron output 
from 397,301 tons to 1,566,702 tons, while the gain in the rest of the 
country was from 3,898,113 to 6,950,366 tons. The percentage of increase 
was 294 in the South and 78 in the rest of the country. The South enters 
upon the new decade with every assurance of making a still better com- 
parative showing at the end of 1899 than even this record of 1880-89. 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 21 

There are now under contract to be built and under construction in 
the South about 30 furnaces. As nearly all of them are large they will 
average over 100 tons capacity a day or an aggregate capacity ot over 
1,000,000 tons a year. Some have imagined that the South would soon 
reach the limit of profitable iron production and have to stop building 
new furnaces, but this point is fully covered by a recent article in the 
Nashville Herald by Col. A. M. Shook, the manager of the Southern Iron 
Company of Nashville, who for twenty years has been one of the fore- 
most iron makers of the country. Col. Shook says : " The feeling that 
there was great danger of an overproduction of pig iron, especially in 
th • South, lias been shared almost universally for the past three years by 
those who were most interested in its manufacture. This, too, was a 
most natural conclusion, based upon the conditions that existed at that 
time, and up to within six or eight months ago, the older pig iron pro- 
ducing sections, with, perhaps, the exception of the Hocking Valley, 
keeping up their annual production, and in some instances increasing it. 
The immense stocks on hand in England were also a constant menace 
to producers in this country. 

What are the conditions as they exist to-day? Statistics of our pro 
duction for 1889 show an increase of over 1,200,000 tons, and this is not 
based upon any abnormal railroad construction which always superin- 
duces enormous consumption of iron and iron products. Notwithstand- 
ing this fact, this largely increased output has been consumed and our 
stocks to-day are no more than they were a year ago. 

The production in Great Britain for 1889 was also larger than ever 
before, and it is now a conceded fact that the iron makers of that country 
have about reached the limit of their production ; and even the high price 
of iron, which is now prevalent, and which is nearly 100 per cent, higher 
than two years ago, is not largely affecting their production. Notwith- 
standing these high prices, their consumption has increased and is 
increasing enormously. 

Now, if these facts are true is it not quite evident that there is no 
reason for having any alarm about the future of our iron market ? 

The outlook for business this year is infinitely better than it was a year 
ago, the business that is being offered to the railroads being greater than 
ever known before, and taken as a whole their earnings are larger. This 
indicates a universal degree of prosperity throughout the entire country, 
which made and consumed more than one million tons more iron in 1889 
than was made in 1888, which was up to that time the largest production 
ever reached in this country. Is it not almost certain that we will 



22 THE SOUTH' S REDEMPTION ; 

increase our consumption in a greater ratio in 1890 than in 1889? And is 
it not also true that the result of the promised prosperity of 1890 will not 
be fully harvested until 1891 ? For these reasons I claim that we will 
have an exceptionally prosperous year in the iron business, not only 
during 1890, but that it will be even more so during 1891. Many railroad 
schemes that are now budding will simply get well under way during this 
year, and during next year the rails and equipment will have to be pro- 
vided, which will necessitate a very much larger consumption of pig 
iron in 1891 than in 1890." 

"The question," continued Col. Shook, "that naturally suggests itself 
is where is this largely increased output of pig iron to come from ? No 
section of America is looking to any large new development in the iron 
business excepting the South — I mean by the South, southwest Virginia, 
western North Carolina, eastern Kentucky, east Tennessee, north Georgia 
and north Alabama, including the Birmingham iron district. This field 
can be made to produce all the iron wanted in this country for the next 
century. It seems that nature has provided this section with all the 
materials necessary to make pig iron, with a lavish hand. * * * When 
the fact is considered that, perhaps, in ten years this country will be 
required to produce 15,000,000 of tons of iron annually, and the further 
fact that that increased production must come largely from this field ; 
that, in other words, the production of pig iron must be increased in this 
country from half a million to one million tons annually to keep pace 
with the increased consumption, it means that twenty or thirty large- 
sized furnaces will have to be built every year to keep up with the 
enlarged demand. No other section on this continent has the materials 
in such close proximity and such boundless quantities, together with the 
unusual facilities for transportation both by water and rail." 

Or, in a few words, the natural increase in the consumptive require- 
ments of this country must run from 500,000 to 1,000,000 tons annually, 
even without any special growth in iron and steel ship building industries 
and in the exporting of iron and steel, two lines of possible heavy con- 
sumption which seem to be absolutely assured. This increased demand 
must of necessity be met by the South. 

That the full importance of the traffic which this iron business will 
afford to Southern railroads and its influence upon railroad construction 
in that section may be appreciated, some comparative statistics are given 
which will be found of interest. In making iron, the railroads handle about 
5^ tons of freight, including the ore, coke and limestone carried to the fur- 
nace and the iron hauled away, for every ton of iron produced. On the basis 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 23 

of this exhibit 2,000,000 tons of iron, which is probably less than what 
the South's output in 1890 will be, would furnish 11,000,000 tons of freight, 
not counting any of the indirect traffic that would necessarily be devel- 
oped by the growth of this business. This 11,000,000 tons would mean 
550,000 carloads of 40,000 pounds each. It would mean a traffic more 
than six times as great in the number of tons as the entire cotton crop of 
the South, estimating that at 7,000,000 bales and 500 pounds to a bale. 
The influence of the wheat crop upon the railroads of the country is very 
sensibly felt, and especially in Wall street, where prices of railroad stocks 
constantly turn on the preliminary estimates as to the probable yield, 
and yet 400,000,000 bushels of wheat, which is but little short of the crop 
of 1888 for the entire country, would be only 12,000,000 tons, or but 1,000,- 
000 tons more than the tonnage of the South's estimated iron business of 
1890. The immensity of 11,000,000 tons of freight cannot probably be 
more forcibly impressed upon the mind than by the mere statement 
that if it were to be shipped by water its transportation would furnish 
3,000-ton cargoes to over 3,600 ocean steamships. 

It has already been said that the South is building factories and shops 
of various sorts so rapidly that the consumption of pig iron there will 
be very greatly increased. This point is scarcely appreciated by the North- 
ern people, who have heard so much about new furnaces that they have 
overlooked the new rolling mills, car works, pipe works, stove foundries, 
machine works, agricultural implement factories and kindred enterprises. 
Comparatively few outside of Virginia know that in Roanoke, a town which 
was but a small way-station five or six years ago, there are car and loco- 
motive works which employ 1,200 hands, and which not only build rolling 
stock for Southern roads, but compete with Northern works for furnish- 
ing cars to Northern railroads, and that Richmond has locomotive build- 
ing works which cost $800,000 to construct and equip. As we go Soutli 
other enterprises of fully as great magnitude are found in a number of 
places which have grown up since the development of the iron trade 
commenced. In the older places, such as Richmond, Louisville, Knox- 
ville, Nashville, Chattanooga, Memphis and many others, there are many 
iron industries, the trade of which is steadily expanding. These are 
already known. When we come to the newer towns, the ones that have 
attracted the greatest attention as builders of new furnaces, the magni- 
tude of the diversified iron enterprises is seen. Birmingham's rolling- 
mills have pushed their product even into the Chicago market ; its stove 
works have furnished stoves to Mexico; its pin and tack factory ships its 
goods in all directions, while car works and machine shops help to swell 



24 THE SOUTH' S REDEMPTION '; 

the home consumption of the iron which its many furnaces produce. 
This rapidly increasing diversity of Southern industrial growth is seen 
from Maryland to Texas, and is being forcibly illustrated in Birmingham, 
in Chattanooga, in Atlanta, in Florence, in Roanoke, in Middlesborough 
and elsewhere. 

It is not a one-sided and hence an unstable growth, but is a well- 
rounded development, covering every phase of this great industry, from 
the mining of the ore to its conversion into pig iron, and thence through 
all stages of progress until it is turned out as the finished product. The 
far-reaching influence which this rapidly growing industry must inevitably 
exert upon all the business interests — railroad, financial, commercial and 
industrial — of the entire country must- command thoughtful study. It is 
not within the scope of this article to attempt to portray that. The aim 
ot the writer has been simply to present in as brief a manner as possible 
the most striking features of the South's iron industry, to show on what 
its growth is based, the profitableness of the business when well managed, 
and the magnitude which it is now assuming as the fires of one great 
furnace after another are lighted. 



THE RAPID INCREASE IN COAL MINING. 
The magnitude of the wealth of the South in coal is beyond compu- 
tation. The entire coal area of Great Britain covers 11,900 square miles, 
while West Virginia alone has 16,000 square miles of coal fields ; Alabama, 
8,660 square miles; Kentucky, nearly 13,000; Tennessee, 5,100, 
Arkansas, over 9,000, and other Southern States considerable coal areas. 
Moreover, the coal is easily and cheaply mined, and is, as to much of it, 
of the best quality. Some idea of how nearly inexhaustible are the coal 
beds of the .South may be gained from a few statistics as to the 
Warrior coal fields of Alabama, which is simply one of the coal fields of 
one State. Regarding the Warrior field. Prof. Henry McCalley, in his 
late geological report, says that it "contains about 7JS00 square miles, and 
is about two-thirds as large as the entire coal territory of Great Britain. 
Its coal measures are over 3,000 feet thick, containing fifty-three seams of 
coal, being from a few inches to fourteen feet thick, having a combined 
thickness of over 125 feet of pure coal. It is estimated that they contain 
not less than 113,119,000,000 tons, of which about 108,394,000,000 tons 
would be available. The coal is valued now at about 1150,000,000,000 at 
the mine, of which $30, 000,000,000 would be profit, being about 200 times 
the present total assessed value of the property in Alabama, and would 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 25 

buy every foot of Alabama territory at $900 per acre. These coals, like 
those of other fields in Alabama, are especially enhanced in value owing 
to the proximity of vast deposits of red and brown iron ores and lime- 
stones." 

Nowhere else, so far as is known, are the coal fields so admirably 
located in relation to iron ore, to the best markets and as regards the 
rase and cheapness of mining, as in the South. The wide mineral belt, 
which extends from Wheeling and Harper's Ferry, W. Ya., to Northern 
Alabama, has greater undeveloped wealth and a greater combination of 
advantages and possibilities of development than any other area oi 
equal extent in the world. This belt includes a large part of the two 
Virginias, the Carolinas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama. 
As rapid as has been the expansion of the coal mining industry of this 
section it is but in its incipiency and of very small proportions compared 
with what will be seen within the next five or ten years. The production 
of coal in each Southern State in 1880, 1S82, 1887, [888 and 1S89 was as 

folli »ws : 

1887. 1-1889. 

Maryland 2,228.917 1,294 ;i6 5,278,023 [,213,886 

Virginia 1 100,000 63 1,073.000 1,59 

West Virginia 1,839,845 2,000,000 5,8oo 4,726,047 

Georgia ! 000 5.715 265,000 

Alabama . . 800.000 1,900,000 2,900,000 4,000,000 

Tennessee 1,900,000 1,967,000 2,500,000 

Arkansas 50,000 150,000 193,000 250,000 

Texas 75,ooo 90,000 200,000 

Kentucky 946,28s 1.500,000 - 2,750,000 

Total 6,049,471 6,569,316 15.212,006 j8, 001, 270 19,497,41s 

tThese figures were compiled by Mr. F. F<. Saward, < I fournat, N. Y. 

In 1SS2 the South produced 6,569,316 tons of coal, and in [889 19,497." 
I.18 tons. Thus in 7 years, from 18S2 to 1889 the output of Southern coal 
mines advanced from 6,500,000 tons to upwards of 19,500,000 tons, 
between the taking of the census of 1880 and that of 1890 the output of 
Southern coal mines has more than trebled, and every year will show 
continued gains as the development of this industry is rapidly expanding. 

In southwest Virginia, in West Virginia and in southeastern Ken- 
tucky the abundance of coking coals of superior quality has caused an 
almost unprecedented activity in the mining and coke making interests 
of that section. 

Some idea of the extent of the operations that are being carried on 
in this district may be gained from the fact that the American Association, 
Limited, which owns about 60,000 acres of coal lands in the neighborhood 
of the new town of Middlesborough, Ky., has within the last twelve 



26 THE SOUTH' S REDEMPTION ; 

months made leases of coal properties for mining to fourteen different 
operators. It is claimed that these mines alone will put out 1,500,000 
tons of coal within eighteen months. Many new mines besides these on 
the American Association's lands are being opened in the same part of 
Kentucky, and in Virginia and West Virginia there is similar activity. 
In Alabama the demand for coal exceeds the output, notwithstanding the 
rapid increase in the production, and extensive arrangements are in 
progress for increasing the capacity of mines now in operation and for 
opening new mines. 



SOME FACTS ABOUT COTTON. 

EIGHT BILLION DOLLARS DRAWN TO THE SOUTH SINCE 1865 TO PAY FOR 

COTTON. 

Cotton is one of the most remarkable products that enters into the 
world's commercial and industrial interests. Its production gives the 
South a very great advantage over any other section of the country. 
Cotton is always in demand, and its consumption is steadily on the 
increase. The simple fact that since 1865 nearly |8, 000,000,000 have been 
brought into the South to pay for cotton explains in part the marvelous 
recuperative powers of this section since the war. While bad agricultural 
methods have made cotton raising unprofitable to many farmers, yet 
there is no question but that cotton is one of the most profitable crops 
that can be raised when its cultivation is carried on intelligently on a cash 
basis. Southern farmers who raise their own foodstuffs, making cotton 
their surplus money crop, find it a very profitable one, and almost invari- 
ably become well-to-do financially. 

The South produces about three-fourths of the world's annual cotton 
crop, but manufactures only about seven or eight per cent, of what it 
raises, the balance furnishing the material for work for millions of spin- 
dles in New England and in Europe. The total cotton crop of the world 
now runs from about 10,000,000 to 11,000,000 bales, of which the South 
raises on an average, of late years, 7,000,000 bales. Upwards of 80,000,- 
000 spindles are in operation in the world, and of this number the South 
has but 2,000,000, but it should be remembered that in 1880 the South had 
only 660,000 spindles. The increase in the number of its spindles has 
been surprisingly great, and the future promises still more rapid growth. 

Some facts regarding the production of cotton, its value, and the 
amount exported will prove of interest. 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 



"-: 



Cotton Trade of the United States Since 1865. 

Crop years ~ . , ~ . , Consump- For'gn Ex- \j„\„ ar .t 

from July 1 to Acreage. ^l\<S^ valui tion in U.I. ports. ™™? 

August 31. baIes - value - bales. bales. exports. 

1865-1866 2,269,316 J432.331.139 666,100 1,554,664 $281,385,223 

1866-1867 2,097,254 294,159,007 770,030 1,557,054 201,470,423 

1867-1868 2,519,554 278,618,580 906,036 1,655,816 152,820,733 

1868-1869 2,366,467 304,810,362 926,375 1,465,880 162,633,052 

1869-1870 3,122,551 329,466,391 865,160 2,206,480 227,027,624 

1870-1871 4.352,317 326,061,036 1,110,196 3,169,909 218,327,109 

1871-1872 8,911,000 2,974,351 274,569,592 1,237,330 1,957,314 180,684,595 

1872-1873 9,560,000 3,930,508 333,278,121 1,201,127 2,679,986 227,243,069 

1873-1874 10,816,000 4,170,338 310,063,419 1,305,943 2,840,981 211,223,580 

1874-1875 10,982,000 3832,991 272,177,136 1,193,005 2,684,708 190,638,625 

1875-1876 11,635,000 4,632,313 399,445,168 1,351.870 3.234,244 192,659,255 

1876-1877 11,500,000 4,474,069 252,602,340 1,428,013 3,030,835 171, 118,508 

1877-1878 11,825,000 4,773,865 255,768,165 1,489,022 3,360,254 180,031,484 

1878-1879 12,240,000 5,074,155 236,586,031 1,558,329 3,481,004 162,304,250 

1879-1880 12,680,000 5,761,252 313,696,452 1,789,978 3.885,003 211,535,905 

1880-1881 16,123,000 6,605,750 356,524,911 1,938,937 4,589.346 247,695,786 

1881-1882 16,851,000 5,456,048 304,298,744 1,964,535 3,582,622 199,812,644 

1882-1883 16,276,000 6,949,756 327,938,137 2,073,096 4,766,597 224,921,413 

1883-1884 16,780,000 5,713,200 288,803,902 1,876,683 3,916,581 197,984,295 

1884-1885 17,426,000 5,706,165 287,253,972 1,753,125 3,947,972 198,744,802 

1885-1886 18,379,444 6,575,691 313,723,080 2.162,544 4,336,203 206,879,697 

1886-1887 18,581,012 6,505,087 298,504,215 2,111,532 4,453,020 205,243,843 

1887-1888 18,961,897 7,046,833 336,433,653 2,257,247 4,627,502 220,928,551 

1888-1889 19,058,591 6,938,290 t350,ooo,ooo 2,314,091 4,742,347 237,775,270 

1889-1890 17,250,000 t39o,ooo,ooo t250,ooo,ooo 

Total.... {7,867,113,555 $5,161,989,736 

tEstimated. 

These figures are somewhat startling in their magnitude. They 
show that the aggregate value of the cotton raised in the South since 1865 
has been over $7, 800, 000,000, and that the value of cotton exported to 
foreign countries during the same period has been $5,161,000,000. The 
great influence which cotton has exerted upon the foreign commerce of 
the United States can be readily appreciated from these statistics. 

It may be asked if $7,800,000,000 of outside money has gone South 
since 1865 to pay for cotton, what has been accomplished, and why is the 
South still comparatively poor ? The answer is that the condition of the 
agricultural interests of this section after the war, due to the extreme 
poverty of the people at the close of that disastrous struggle, to the 
system of securing money in advance by mortgaging the cotton to be 
raised, the exorbitant rates of interest, the purchase of necessity of farm 
and house supplies on credit at from 75 to 80 per cent, more than cash 
prices, all tended to consume the entire profits on the production of 
cotton. Until very recently these conditions were against the raising at 
home of corn, bacon and other necessities, and almost the entire aggre- 
gate received for cotton went back to the North for foodstuffs. The lack 
of manufactures necessitated dependence upon other sections for almost 
every line of manufactured goods, from a pin to a locomotive. A carefui 



28 THE SOUTH' S REDEMPTION; 

study of the history of this section will show that the South was not to 
blame, except to a limited extent, for this condition of affairs. Gradually 
the people rallied from the disasters of war and commenced the develop- 
ment of manufactures and the diversification of their farm products. 
Their "smoke house and corn crib" have ceased to be in the West, and 
the South is now nearly self-supporting in supplying its consumptive 
requirements of foodstuffs. Cotton is yearly becoming more and more 
a surplus crop, and the several hundred millions of dollars which it an- 
nually yields will, in the future, largely remain here for the enrichment 
of this section, instead of going- North and West to pay for bacon, bread- 
stuffs and manufactured goods. In this change there is a revolution in 
tin currents of business that must produce surprising results. Added to 
tlie one or two hundred millions of dollars of cotton money that have for 
twenty-five years annually gone North, but which will now remain in the 
South, will be an equal, or possibly a greater amount brought to the 
South to pay for the iron, the lumber and the cotton goods that are now 
being shipped North, the millions that will come to pay for mineral and 
timber lands, the $50,000,000 or more that is now paid for early vegetables 
and fruits, and the great aggregate, reaching probably already $25,000,- 

< spent by winter visitors who come South to enjoy its climate. These 

facts are astounding. They can but impress anyone with the mighty 
change that is now being wrought out in the condition of the South. 

That the South, which produces the cotton, is destined to manufac- 
ture it admits of no questioning. The South has the natural advantages 
necessary for success in this business, and whatever difficulties there may 
he in the way are easily overcome when practical experience, backed by 
capital, is brought to bear upon the matter. There may be times of 
depression, but this will not stop the sure and steady growth of this great 
industry. Good operatives, it has been said by some, cannot be had in 
the South, and this section can never hope, so some of our New England 
friends claim, to do anything more than manufacture coarse goods, but 
a few years ago the same people were just as ready to claim that cotton 
manufacturing, even of coarse goods, would never amount to much in 
the South. Forced now to admit that Southern mills control this branch 
of the business, they fall back on the threadbare argument against the 
possibility of the Southern mills ever successfully competing with New 
England mills on the finer goods. Before many years have passed they 
will be forced to abandon this. Every cotton mill that goes into opera- 
tion in the South helps to make more certain the future supremacy of this 
section in every branch of this industry. With the increase in this busi- 
ness the number of trained operatives increases, and the skill necessary 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 29 

for the production of finer goods will be found ready at hand when the 
cotton manufacturers of the South decide that the time has come for 
devoting m5re attention to fine goods. 

It was but a few years ago when the statement that the South would, 
in time, control the iron market of the country was ridiculed, and the reply 
made that, while the South might produce a large quantity of low grade pig 
iron, it could never hope to compete with the North in the finer, finished 
products of iron and steel, where an abundance of capital and skilled 
mechanics would enable that section to still control this branch of the 
business. At first the South demonstrated that it could make pig iron 
more cheaply than any other part of this country. Having done this, 
attention was turned to the building of enterprises for producing the 
finished goods, and locomotive works, car and car-wheel works, tack 
factories, stove foundries, hardware factories, nail mills, engine works, 
saw factories and hundreds of kindred enterprises are daily proving that 
the South can manufacture every variety of fine products requiring the 
highest skilled labor. As in iron, so it will be in cotton. When the time 
is ripe, and that time seems to be at hand, for the South to turn its atten- 
tion to finer qualities of cotton goods, it will do so, and do it successfully. 

In 1880 the census reported $207,781,868 invested in cotton manufac- 
ture in the United States, and the consumption of cotton by American 
mills 1,570,342 bales, or much less than one-fourth of an average crop. 
On this basis it would require an investment of over $800,000,000 in mills 
to consume our entire cotton crop ; so we can form some idea ot what 
the magnitude of the cotton manufacturing interests is. Out of an esti- 
mated total of 80,000,000 spindles in the world, the United States has only 
about 13,000,000, Great Britain having over one-half, or 42,000,000. 

The Manufacturers' Record lately compiled, through special reports 
from cotton mills in the South, a list of all the mills in that section, with 
the number of spindles and looms in each ; and, comparing these figures 
with the reports of the census of 1S80, we have the following interesting 
table, showing a most remarkable increase : 

, July 31, 1889. , • May, 18S0. 

No. of No. of No. of Xn. (if No. of No. of 

Stales. Mills. Spindles. Looms. Mills. Spindles. Looms. 

Alabama 21 131, 904 2,414 16 49, 432 

Arkansas 5 13,800 224 2 2,015 2 § 

Florida 1 1,400 1 816 .... 

Georgia... 73 4.55.99 s 10,246 40 198,656 4,493 

Kentucky 6 45,200 677 3 9,022 73 

Louisiana 5 60.2S0 1,584 2 6,096 120 

Maryland 25 i75. 6 4 2 3.536 19 125,706 2,425 

Mississippi.. n 69,396 2,054 S 18,568 644 

North Carolina.. in 386,837 7,851 49 92,385 1,790 

South Carolina 44 417,730 10,687 14 82,334 1,676 

Tennessee 31 126,324 v 2,478 16 3^,736 818 

Texas S 50,868 496 2 2,648 71 

Virginia 14 99.S89 2,754 8 44.340 1,322 

Total 355 2,035,268 45,001 161 667,854 H.3 2 3 



3o THE SOU TIPS REDEMPTION ; 

These figures show that the number of mills now in the South as 
compared with 1880 has doubled, while the number of spindles and looms 
has more than trebled, the tendency being to build mills of greater capac- 
ity than formerly. From 161 mills having 667,854 spindles and 14,323 
looms in 1880 this industry has increased until there are now 355 mills 
with 2,035,268 spindles and 45,001 looms in the South. As remarkable as 
is this increase, these figures really do not fully represent the develop- 
ment of this business, for they do not include the spindles and looms of 
many new mills now under construction, and others upon which work 
will shortly begin. 

The foregoing table shows that Georgia leads in the number of spin- 
dles, having 455,998, while South Carolina is first in the number of looms 
and second in the number of spindles. South Carolina is probably mak- 
ing not only more rapid progress in the development of this industry than 
any other Southern State, but its advance in that line seems to be more 
evenly rounded out, and on a broader basis looking to the future. Its 
mills are very large, and many of them have grown to their present size 
from small beginnings, through wise management. They have paid good 
dividends for years, and steadily increased their surplus, investing it in 
new machinery and new mills. They have, moreover, apparently given 
closer study to the possibility of diversity and of the making of finer 
goods. 

The importance of developing this industry cannot be too strongly 
emphasized. It keeps at home the great wealth produced in manufac- 
turing the South's leading staple. As already shown on the basis of the 
capital invested and the bales of cotton consumed in American 
mills in 1S80, an investment of |8oo,ooo,ooo would be required to 
manufacture the entire cotton crop of this country. Instead of selling for 
about 5350,000,000 a year, as the cotton crop now does, it would, if wholly 
manufactured in the South, represent over $1, 000,000,000 a year. Cotton 
mills furnish employment to a large class of labor that must remain idle 
for lack of work, except as this business grows. In every town and 
city of the South there are hundreds, and in some thousands, of white 
women and girls anxious to work, while there is no work for them. 
Given employment at cotton manufacturing, in which they readily become 
expert, they are enabled to support themselves, and thus to add greatly 
to the wealth of the community. Mr. John Hill, one of the leading cotton 
manufacturing experts of the South, has estimated that, of the opera- 
tives given employment by the establishment of a cotton mill, at least 
80 or 90 per cent, are people who before had been unemployed, and hence 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 3 [ 

had added nothing to the productive or wealth-creating power of the 
State. Formerly idlers — not from choice, but from force of circum- 
stances, they cease to be a drain on others and become self-supporting. 
This is one of the great blessings which the growth of cotton manufac- 
turing brings to the South. 

Hon. Edward Atkinson, of Boston, the well-known political econo- 
mist, in his report for the census upon the cotton manufacturing interests 
of the country, after showing the much greater advantages that New 
England possesses for this industry as compared with the most favored 
districts of England, wrote : 

" It may be said that this proves too much, and that the cotton 
spinners of the Southern States will have the same relative advantage 
over New England. Let this be freely admitted. We are treating the 
question of the future supremacy of the United States in the manufacture 
as well as the growth of cotton, and if the future changes in population, 
wealth and condition of the different sections of this country shall cause 
the increase of spindles, especially in the coarse fabrics, to be planted in 
the healthy hill country of northern Georgia, eastern Tennessee and the 
Carolinas, it will simply be the greater evidence that natural laws are 
paramount. If Georgia has twice the advantages over Lancashire that 
New England now possesses, it will only be the fault of the people of 
Georgia if they do not reap the benefit of it." 

The force of Mr. Atkinson's logic will assuredly be seen in the not 
very distant future. Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee will not mon- 
opolize this industry. The whole South will share in its development, 
and while Georgia and the Carolinas have of late years made the greatest 
progress, the other States are following very fast in the same line ot 
progress. 

A leading New England cotton mill builder, Mr. C. R. Makepeace, 
of Providence, R. I., in a recent letter to the Manufacturers' 1 Record on 
the advantages of the South for cotton manufacturing, said : 

" It is well known that the true interests of a people are best pro- 
moted when the products of their industries, either for domestic or foreign 
trade, are of the kind most favored by nature and produced where nature 
affords the greatest facilities for cheap production. It is of interest to 
note that the advantages claimed by the mills in the North over those in 
the South are precisely the same as those claimed by the mills of Great 
Britain over the mills of New England several years ago, but which the 
manufacturers of New England have proven to be untrue in the main. 
That Great Britain does possess some slight advantage over New Eng- 



32 THE SOUTH' S REDEMPTION j 

land in this branch of industry is true as the North possesses certain 
advantages over the South and will continue to do so. 

"The mills of the Southern States possess a decided advantage over 
the mills in the North and Great Britain in that they have the raw cotton 
at their doors, and that this alone represents a money value sufficient to 
give them control of the coarse goods has been fully demonstrated 
within the last ten years. This difference can be more clearly shown by 
the following illustration : Let us assume a 40,000 spindle mill is located 
at any well selected site in the cotton growing section of the Southern 
States. This mill, properly equipped with the latest and most approved 
style of machinery for the manufacture of standard 4-4 sheetings to 
Nos. j 2 to 14 yarns, would cost complete $800,000 and would consume 
20,000 bales of cotton per annum. It is variously estimated that the 
difference in cost of a bale of cotton — 490 pounds — between the mills in 
Augusta, Ga., and Fall River, Mass., is from $4 to $6 a bale. Assume the 
lowest estimate of $4 per bale and you have 2o,ooox$4 equals $80,000 in 
favor of the Augusta mill, or a saving of 10 per cent, on the complete 
cost of the mill, in cotton alone." 



IN AGRICULTURE THE SOUTH LEADS. 

A MARVELOUS RECORD OF PROGRESS MADE BY SOUTHERN FARMERS. 

The industrial development of the South has attracted so much atten- 
tion that no one will question its magnitude, but there are few who realize 
the extent of the progress made of late years by the agricultural interests 
of this section. It is the combination of increasing agricultural pros- 
perity and industrial activity which has placed the South in its present 
favorable financial condition. It will be well to show by statistics what 
the farmers have done since 1870. The production of leading crops in 
1870, 1887, 1888 and 1889 in the South was : 

Increase in 
1889 
1870. 1887. 1888. 1889. over 1870. 

Cotton, bales 3,011,996 7,017,707 6,938,290 t 7,250,000 4,238,004 

Corn, bushels 249,072,118 492,415,000 509,705,000 519,517,000 270,444,882 

Wheat, bushels 33341,340 52,384,000 44,207,000 55,060,000 21,718,660 

Oats, bushels 31.973,542 Si, 506,000 78,254,000 77,714,000 45,740,45^ 

t Estimated. 

From 3,000,000 bales of cotton in 1870, the yield in the South advanced 
to 7,250.000 bales in 1889. Thus it has largely more than doubled its 
cotton crop. Better still, it increased its corn production from 249,000,000 
bushels in 1870 to 519,517,000 in 1889, a gain of 270,000,000 bushels. In 
wheat the South's increase in 1889 over 1870 was nearly 22,000,000 bushels. 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. ^ 

and in oats the South increased from 31,970,000 bushels in 1870 to 77,714,- 
000 bushels in 1889, a gain of 45,000,000 bushels. It is since 1879 or 1880, 
however, that the South has made the most marked agricultural progress. 
The yield of principal crops in the South in 1879, [887, 1888 and 18S9 
was as follows : 

Crops. 1879. 1887. 1888. 1SS9. 

Cotton, bales 5.755.359 7,017,000 6,938,290 t 7,250,000 

Corn, bushels 333,121,290 492,415,000 509,705,000 519.517,000 

Wheat, bushels 54,476,740 52,384,000 44,207,000 55,060,000 

Oats, bushels 43,476,600 Si, 506, 000 78,254,000 77,714,000 

Total grain, bushels 431,074,630 626,305,000 632,166,000 652,291,000 

Increase over 1879— Cotton, bales. Grain, bushels. 

In 1889 1,494,641 221,216,370 

In 1888 1,244,641 201,091,370 

In 1S87 1,261,641 ' 195,230,370 

t Estimated. 

These figures show an increase in the production of grain from 1879 
to 1888 of over 220,000,000 bushels. How does this increase compare 
with the production in the rest of the country ? The following figures 
show : 

Yield in whole country, except 

the South". 1879. 1887. 1S8S. 1889. 

Corn, bushels 1,214,780,500 963,746,000 1,478,085,000 1,593,375,000 

Wheat, bushels 394,279,890 403,945,000 371,661,000 435,500,000 

Oats, bushels 320,293,720 578,112,000 623,481,000 673,801,000 

Total 1,929,354,110 1,945,803,000 2,473,227,000 2,702,676,000 

Notwithstanding the fact that the West produced last year the 
largest corn crop ever made, the increase as compared with 1879 was only 
31 per cent., while the increase in the South's corn crop from 1879 to 1889 
was 55 per cent. 

While the South, as shown by the foregoing figures, made an increase 
from 1879 to 1887 of 19.5,000,000 bushels of grain, or 45 per cent., the in- 
crease in all the rest of the country for the same period was only 16,000,- 
000 bushels, or less than one per cent. It is true that the West had a 
short corn crop that year, but so did Kentucky, one of the largest of the 
corn-producing States of the South, and moreover the West had an 
unusually large crop of oats, the largest, in fact, ever produced up to 
that time. But if we were to give the North and West the benefit of the 
large corn years of 1884, 1885 and 1886, and take as a comparison the 
average crop for five years, the rate of increase in grain production for 
the whole country, excepting the South, from 1870 to 1887, would still be 
only about 12 per cent., against a 45 per cent, increase in the South. In 
1888 the West had phenomenally large corn and oat crops, and the 
increase over 1879 was very large, but the percentage of gain was only 
28 per cent., while for the same time the South made an increase of 46 
per cent. Thus the South, burdened by its weight of poverty entailed 



34 THE SOUTH' S REDEMPTION ; 

by the war, with a disorganized labor system, and without immigration, 
except to Texas, has, since 1870, considerably more than doubled its 
cotton and grain crops, and made, surprising as it is, a much greater per- 
centage of increase in the production of corn since 1879 than all the rest 
of the country. When we consider the poverty of the South at the start, 
and the lack of immigration, and contrast it with the wealth of the North 
and West, and the tremendous immigration to the agricultural regions of 
the West, this agricultural progress of the South is astonishing. It is a 
monument to the energy of the people of this section. 

A comparison of the yield of corn by States in the South in 1879 and 

1889 will show how general has been the advance : 

1879. 1889. 

Bushels. Bushels. 

Maryland 13,721,000 15, 105,000 

Virginia 19,957,600 34,231,000 

North Carolina 25,678,500 33,050,000 

South Carolina 9,702,000 18,310,000 

Georgia 20,627,400 33,730,000 

Florida i,945^5° 5,206,000 

Alabama 25,403,300 33,944,000 

Mississippi ■ 24,926,400 29,474,000 

Louisiana 12,592,500 18,949,000 

Texas 29,198,000 83,698,000 

Arkansas 22,432,800 42,608,000 

Tennessee '• 5°. 8 97.5°° 80,831,000 

West Virginia 11,302,600 15,199,000 

Kentucky 64,736,000 75,382,000 

Total 333.121,250 519,517,000 

A comparison of the value of live stock in the South in 1879, and on 

January 1, 1889, will prove of interest: 

J 1879. 1889. 

Horses •• $127,502,759 $168,082,001 

Mules 65,059,675 117,178,894 

Milch cows 47,630.990 69,515,924 

Oxen and other cattle 87,019,999 133.919075 

Sheep 19,262,888 17,239,517 

Hogs 44.935 943 63,226, 139 

Total $391,412,254 $569,161,550 

Increase $177,749,296 

This is a pretty healthy increase in the value of live stock between 
1879 and 1889. 

The total values of the chief agricultural products of the South for 
1879 and 1889 (omitting sugar, rice, fruits and vegetables, &c, the value 
of which is not given in the United States Agricultural Department's 

reports) compare as follows : 

^ 1879. 1889. 

Cotton $227,893 000 t $390,000,000 

Corn 1S7.958.752 221,476,502 

Wheat 65,575.378 44,701,792 

Oats 20,193,011 28,763,002 

Potatoes, barley, hay, tobacco, &c 69,478,313 100,000,000 

Total $571,093,454 $784,941,296 

Increase ,••••' $213,842,842 

tPartly estimated. 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 35 

If to these figures we add the increase in fruits, vegetables, &c, the 
total gain in the value of agricultural products of the South in 1889 over 
1879 was upwards of $250,000,000, while during the same time the increase 
in the value of live stock was, as has already been shown, $177,749,000. 
The crops of 1889 in the South were the largest ever raised. It is esti- 
mated that the cotton yield will reach 7,250,000 bales, and the corn crop 
was 519,517,000 bushels. Of fruits and vegetables, such crops as the 
South produced in 1889 were beyond anything known before in that 
section, and many millions of dollars were drawn from the North and 
West to pay for early Southern fruits and market produce. A conserva- 
tive estimate would place the aggregate value of the South's agricultural 
products in 1889 at not less than $850,000,000. 



RAILROADS. 

THE SOUTH THE CENTER OF ACTIVITY IN RAILROAD BUILDING. 

Although the mineral resources of the South and its vast forests have 
attracted widespread attention and drawn millions of dollars of capital 
to this section for investment, yet the development of its railroad inter- 
ests has received still greater consideration and absorbed even more 
money. 

"This," says a recent writer, "is the most commanding theatre of 
capital, and strikes the eye of the world not only for its colossal combi- 
nations of money, but the prestige of its participants. The capitalists of 
Europe and the United States, who have been so largely interested in 
building new railroads and improving old ones throughout the whole 
South, have added untold and incomputable momentum to the progress 
of that section. While they may not have led the way in starting the 
South on her wonderful speed of development, they have largely added 
to and confirmed — sealed, as it were — the confidence of the civilized 
world in the eligibility of the South as a field for investment and enter- 
prise ; and the South owes an immense debt of gratitude to these 
monetary magnates who have stamped with the golden seal of their 
capital the indelible impress of their confidence. The logic of confidence 
in the South's progress is enunciated in the golden argument of capital, 
and is voiced in the fierce rhetoric of thunderous and clattering railroad 
trains. And these roads are bands of iron to bind our union in the 
bonds of indissoluble fraternity ; and the cogency of common interest is 
added to the kindliest friendship." 

The magnitude of the investments made in Southern railroads since 
the first of January, 1880, is almost beyond comprehension. In nine years 



36 THE SOUTH' S REDEMPTION ; 

20.000 miles of new road, not counting sidings and switches, have been 
laid in the fourteen Southern States. In 1880 the South had 20,612 miles 
of road, while at the end of 1889 it had 40,521. The gain has been nearly 100 
per cent., while from 1880 to 1889 the gain in the whole country was only 
about 64 per cent. 

In 1886 the South built 20 per cent, of the total new mileage of that 
year; in 1887 it built 23 percent.; in 1888 35 per cent., and during 1889 
40 per cent. These facts indicate how rapidly the South is gaining in 
railroad construction as compared with the rest of the country. That the 
railroad mileage of the South has made a larger percentage of gain than 
the West, is an astonishing fact, in view of the tremendous growth of the 
great West, to which the millions of foreign immigrants that have landed 
in this country have mainly gone. The South, with but little immigra- 
tion, and not yet fully recovered from the poverty entailed by the most 
disastrous war in the history of the world, is making a greater rate of 
progress in railroad building than even the rich and powerful West. In 
1880 the total mileage of the country was 98,296 miles, and of this 20,562 
miles, or 20 per cent, were in the South, while in 1889 the South had 40,- 
521 miles out of a total of 161,270, or 25 per cent. 

The average cost of construction and equipment is not less than $25,- 
000 a mile, and at this rate the 20,000 miles of new road built since Jan- 
uary 1st, 1880, represent a cash investment of $500,000,000. 

The amount invested in building new roads is, however, but a part 
of the full sum expended during the last ten years in Southern railroad 
development. Old roads have been improved at a great outlay. Thou- 
sands of miles of iron rails have been replaced with steel, new and better 
bridges have been built, the rolling stock has been increased to meet the 
ever increasing volume of freight and passenger traffic, and other im- 
provements made, the whole aggregating probably not far from half as 
much as the cost of the new roads constructed. Poor's Railroad Manual, 
the standard authority on such matters, gives the actual cost by States 
of all railroads in the country and their equipment, showing a total for 
the South in 1888 of over $1,400,000,000, against $679,000,000 in 1880, or an 
increase of about $721,000,000, to which may be added $50,000,000 or more 
for 1889, making the amount expended in the development of Southern 
railroads in the last ten years about $800,000,000. 

All indications point to the greatest activity in railroad construction 
in the South during the next few years that has ever been seen in this 
section. So great is the increase in the volume of freight, that there is 
scarcely a road in the South that is not blocked with business, and the 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 37 

double tracking of nearly all leading Southern roads is becoming a press- 
ing necessity. 

The future of Southern railroad interests is very promising. The 
traffic will develop faster than facilities can be provided for handling it, 
and the prosperity of the South means the prosperity of its railroads. 

The railroad mileage by States in the South at the end of 1880 and 

1889 was as follows : 

1880. 1889. 
States. Mileage. Mileage. 

Maryland and D. C... 1,040 1,214 

Virginia. 1.893 3>i88 

West Virginia 691 i,33° 

North Carolina 1,486 2,793 

South Carolina 1,427 2,127 

Georgia 2,459 4,277 

Florida ;. . 518 2,433 

Alabama 1, 843 3.n6 

Mississippi 1,127 2,417 

Louisiana 652 1,615 

Arkansas. 859 2,112 

Texas 3,244 8,494 

Tennessee 1,843 2,651 

Kentucky 1,53° 2 >754 

Total 20,612 40,521 



THE SOUTH'S INCREASING FOREIGN COMMERCE. 
A very striking fact in connection with the general growth of the 
South is the great increase in the foreign commerce of every Southern 
port during 1S89. From the official statistics of the Bureau of Statistics 
the following figures have been compiled : 

Value of foreign exports for 
Ports. 1889. 1888. 

Baltimore $62,091,733 

Beaufort. S. C 



Brazos. Texas 

Brunswick, C.a 

Charleston, S. C 

Corpus Christi 

Fernandina 

Galveston 

Key West 

Mobile 

New Orleans 

Newport News 

Norfolk 

Pearl River, Miss 

Pensacola, Fla 

Richmond 

Saluria, Texas 

Savannah 

Teche, La 

Wilmington, N. C 

Total $^90,540,296 $223,581,558 

Increase in 1SS9 over 188S $66,958,738 



$ 62,091,733 


$ 45,104,613 


1,106,296 


849,839 


8iS,726 


726,273 


8,200,273 


4,617,903 


16,355,933 


13,003,628 


2,653,832 


1,952,812 


3i6,45S 


176,377 


23,836,075 


14,496 669 




438,056 


3,918,2(6 


3,442,619 


101,328,375 


80,906,145 


6,373,606 


6.281,664 


12,802,334 


13,812,641 


1,091,949 


851,586 


3.705,404 


2,691,268 


10,592,744 


8,852,728 


1,407,824 


1,325,122 


27,604.404 


17,850,223 


16,846 


3,238 


6,319,218 


6,198,144 



3$ THE SOUTH' S REDEMPTION ; 

The total increase for the whole country was $135,489,323, and of this 
gain the South had nearly one-half. The percentage of increase in the 
South was 29, against 14 in the balance of the country. These figures 
are extremely gratifying to all interested in the progress of the South. 
They show that its commerce is keeping even step in the march of 
progress with its industrial interests. While the South's foreign commerce 
has been growing so rapidly, as shown by these figures, its coastwise 
trade has developed probably with still greater rapidity, though there 
are no sources of exact statistical information on the subject. 



TEN YEARS OF BANKING. 

THE SOUTH LEADS IN THE RATE OF INCREASE IN NATIONAL BANKING. 

A substantial business community must have a substantial banking 
system. Hence, to ascertain the stability of any community, one natu- 
rally turns to its banks first to see what their standing is. 

Immediately following the war came the development and settlement 
of the great empire of the West. Immigrants from the overcrowded 
shops and fields of Europe entered our ports by the thousands every 
week, and pushed the line of civilization westward until the Mississippi 
river, which a few years before was an unexplored stream, became a most 
familiar highway. Railroads reached out into virgin prairies, which in a 
night, as it were, became dotted with farming communities. More roads 
were built to keep up with the streams of new settlers until the Rocky 
mountains were reached. Here the farming communities ended, but 
mining communities took up the rush, and by the aid of more railways 
soon brought the Pacific slope into close communication with the Missis- 
sippi valley. This immense development brought increased volumes of 
trade to the workshops and factories of New England. Modest little 
industrial plants added new buildings and machinery to supply the 
demands of these new settlements in the West in clothing the people, 
extending railways and supplying agricultural and other implements and 
utensils. Such an enormous traffic demanded the assistance of banking 
institutions, and much of the heaps of wealth that this great traffic 
brought into New England was used to establish banks and other 
financial institutions, which still' further aided in developing the West. 

Ten years after this great empire was thrown open to the world the 
demand for manufactures led to the establishment of many industries 
nearer the field of demand, and with the increase of manufacturing came 
the necessity for banking institutions. The marvelous growth of the 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 39 

West and the multiplying of national banks there during the decade 
ending in 1879 does not directly concern us. 

Meantime, how fared the South ? Recuperative nature obliterated 
much of the devastation of war, landowners adjusted themselves to the 
new system of labor, the rich natural resources of the region became 
known to the world, numerous industries sprang up, railroads felt their 
way slowly but surely through mountain defiles and over rich, rolling 
bottom lands, and an era of prosperity began to dawn which, now that it 
is fairly under way, promises to be even more marvelous than was that 
in the great West. 

The condition of the national banking system in 1879 well illustrates 
the true business situation in that year. In the whole country were 2,048 
banks. Eleven hundred and sixty-six of these were in the North, which 
includes the New England States, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania 
and Delaware. In the West, which had at this time reached a high state 
of development, were 660 banks. This includes the States from Ohio on 
the east to Kansas -and Nebraska on the West and Missouri and the Ohio 
river on the south. In the Southern States south of the Ohio and west- 
ward to, and including Arkansas and Texas, were 220 banks. It will thus 
be seen that the North had nearly twice as many banks as the West and 
over five times as many as the South. 

The capital stock of these 1,166 banks in the North was $321,905,255, 
that of the 660 banks in the West $83,906,000, and that of the 220 banks 
in the South $45,408,985. That is, the banking capital of the North was 
nearly four times that of the West and about eight times that of the 
South. 

Other banking statistics for 1879 for these three sections of the 
country were as follows : 

Undivided Loans and Individual 

Surplus. profits. discounts. deposits. 

North 588,182,821 $31,911,066 $749,322,642 $611,910,657 

West 22,324,238 9,348,454 191,506,669 179,278,252 

South 8,999,309 3,727,211 85,280,309 64,730,849 

The North had about four times as much surplus as the West and ten 
times as much as the South. Of undivided profits the North had over three 
times as much as the West and over eight times as much as the South. 
Loans and discounts in the North were nearly seven times those in the 
West and nearly nine times those in the South. Individual deposits in 
the North were four times those in the West and over nine times those in 
the South. 

Thus, when a statement of the condition of the national banks was 
called for on October 2, 1879, the banks in the North had loans and 



4o THE SOUTH' S REDEMPTION '; 

discounts out to the amount of 1749,322,642, while the capital stock, 
surplus, individual profits and individual deposits aggregated #1,053,- 
909,799. The Western banks had $191,506,669 loans and discounts as 
resources and #294,856,944 of capital stock, surplus, undivided profits 
and individual deposits. In the South these aggregated liabilities were 
# I2 3>°55>°99> with loan and discount resources of #85,280,309. The 
average deposits per bank in the North was about #525,000, in the West 
#272,000 and in the South #294,000. 

How do these figures compare with the statement of the national 
banks in 1889? On July 12, 1S89, there were 3,230 banks in the country, 
with an aggregate capital stock of #600,851,640, an increase of i,iS2 banks 
and of nearly #150,000,000 in capital stock. The increase in the number 
qf banks since 1879 had been about thirteen per cent, in the North, 
eighty-one per cent, in the West and one hundred and thirteen per cent, 
in the South, while the increase in capital stock was nearly four per cent, 
in the North, ninety-five per cent, in the West and seventy per cent, in 
the South. 

Other figures for 1889 were as follows : 

Undivided Loans and Individual 

Surplus. profits. discounts. deposits. 

North $127,582,805 $45,549,875 $1,061,812,372 $852,424774 

West 40,338.597 14,765.698 450,318,506 370,910,925 

South 21,937,991 7.136,579 179.787,377 i39,093. 2 3 2 

It will thus be seen that there was an increase of surplus of forty-five 
per cent, in the North, eighty-two per cent, in the West and one hundred 
and forty-six per cent, in the South ; of undivided profits an increase of 
forty-three per cent, in the North, fifty-eight per cent, in the West and 
ninety-two per cent, in the South; of loans and discounts, forty-one per 
cent, in the North, one hundred and thiriy-six per cent in the West and of 
one hundred and ten per cent, in the South ; and of individual deposits, 
thirty-nine per cent, in the north, one hundred and seven per cent, in the 
West and one hundred and sixteen per cent, in the South. In 1879 the 
percentage of surplus in the North to the capital stock was twenty-seven 
per cent, and in 1889 thirty-eight per cent. In the West this percentage 
was about twenty-four per cent, in 1879 and the same in 1889, while in the 
South the percentage of surplus to capital stock was seventeen per cent, 
in 1879 and twenty-seven per cent, in 1889. 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 41 

THE UNLIMITED POSSIBILITIES OF DEVELOPMENT 
IN THE SOUTH. 

The industrial advancement of the South during the last \ew years 
has been so rapid that many people, who have failed to appreciate the 
magnitude of the natural resources on which this progress is based, 
wrongly imagine that this development must in a few years reach its 
limit. They cannot comprehend, because they have not studied the 
subject, that the South's growth can go on indefinitely and yet the limit 
be not reached. 

This point can probably be best illustrated by taking one State, 
Alabama for instance, as a type of the South and comparing it with 
Pennsylvania, the typical wealthy State of the North, combining enor- 
mous industrial and agricultural prosperity. If it can be shown that 
Alabama in itself has greater possibilities than Pennsylvania, and is 
destined in time to surpass the latter in industrial and agricultural 
wealth, it will be readily admitted that the former has as yet scarcely laid 
the foundation of its industrial structure. This can be better understood 
when it is remembered that in 1880 the value of the manufactured products 
of Pennsylvania was 1744,818,445, or nearly 1300,000,000 greater than the 
combined values of the manufactured products of the entire fourteen South- 
ern States in that year, and 57 times greater than the value of Alabama's 
manufactured products in the same year; in other words, against Penn- 
sylvania's 1744,000,000, Alabama had less than $14,000,000 as the value of 
her manufactured products in 1880. The assessed value of personal 
property and real estate in Pennsylvania in 1880 was $1,683,450,016, 
against $122,863,228 in Alabama. In 1880 Alabama had a population of 
1,262,344, while Pennsylvania had 4,282,891 ; Alabama had 2,070 manufac- 
turing establishments and Pennsylvania 31,225; Alabama had only four 
towns or cities having a population of over 4,000, while Pennsylvania 
had fifty-six. 

These statistics show what great progress Alabama must make 
before it attains even unto Pennsylvania's wealth and population in 
1880. To do this it must nearly quadruple its population ; increase 
the capital invested in manufactures from $9,600,000 in 1S80 to Pennsylva- 
nia's $475,000,000; the value of the products of its factories from $14,- 
000,000 to $744,800,000 ; the value of its assessable property from $122,- 
000,000 to $1,680,000,000; the number of its factories from 2,000 to 31,000, 
and its present railroad mileage from 3,000 miles to Pennsylvania's 7,445 
miles. 



42 THE SOUTH' S REDEMPTION ; 

Doubtless many will say that all this is impossible and that Alabama 
can never reach Pennsylvania's material greatness. This is not, how- 
ever, to show that Alabama will overtake and surpass Pennsylvania, for 
the latter State is still pressing forward in development, though even 
this may be done, but is simply designed to show what immense strides 
Alabama must make for years to come even to reach where Pennsylva- 
nia stood in 1880. 

Can this be done? Undoubtedly. If this answer is correct then 
there need be no fear that Alabama (and Alabama is here used as a type 
of the whole South) will develop too rapidly or that the limit of its 
healthy progress will be reached for many generations. 

Now if Alabama has greater advantages and resources of minerals, 
timber, soil, climate, watercourses, &c, than Pennsylvania, and if all 
these can be utilized to better advantage, and its minerals more easily 
and cheaply developed, then there is no reason why Alabama should not 
become as populous and as wealthy as Pennsylvania. The total area 
(land surface) of Alabama is 51,540 square miles, and of Pennsylvania 
44,985 square miles, or a difference of 6,600 square miles in favor of the 
former. The timber resources of Alabama are immense. In 1880 there 
were 21,192,000,000 feet of standing pine, while Pennsylvania had only 
1,800,000,000, or not one-tenth as much as the former State. Of Pennsyl- 
vania's timber interests the census report says : "Merchantable pine has 
now almost disappeared from the State and the forests of hardwood have 
been either replaced by a second growth or have been so generally culled 
of their best trees that comparatively little valuable hardwood now 
remains. * * * From all parts of the State manufacturers using hard- 
wood report great deterioration and scarcity of material, and Pennsyl- 
vania must soon lose, with its rapidly disappearing forests, its position as 
one of the great lumber producing States." 

On the contrary, Alabama, in addition to its immense pine forests, is 
reported as having much of its territory covered with a rich and varied 
forest growth of broad-leaved trees, in which oaks, hickories, ashes, 
walnuts and cherries abound, while there are also great regions covered 
with heavy forests of cypress, a very valuable timber. Alabama has the 
material for more than duplicating Pennsylvania's 2,Soo lumber mills, 
with their 121,400,000 of capital, and this will be done as the demand for 
lumber and woodwork generally increases. 

Alabama has nearly 9,000 square miles of coal area, or nearly as 
much as the entire coal area of Great Britain, and but slightly less than 
Pennsylvania's. Its iron ore mines are absolutely inexhaustible, accord- 
ing to all human calculations. 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 43 

Col. A. K. McClure, of Philadelphia, one of the leading men of the 
times, and who could not be expected to praise Alabama at the 
expense of his own State, was so impressed several years ago, 
after a careful study of the subject, with the magnitude of Ala- 
bama's mineral wealth and the cheapness of its development that he 
wrote a most interesting article, from which the following extract is 
taken, and while old to many of the regular readers of the Manufacturer's 
ftecord, will be new to some who read this issue : 

"I have studied the resources and opportunities of the State with 
special interest, because they are certain to revolutionize some of our 
chief sources of wealth in Pennsylvania, and the more they are studied 
the more clear it must become to every intelligent mind that England is 
not to-day more the rival of the Keystone State in the future production 
of iron and coal than is Alabama. There is not a source of mineral 
wealth in Pennsylvania, excepting only our oil product, that is not found 
in Alabama in equal or greater abundance, with the matchless advan- 
tages of climate, of easier and cheaper production, and of vastly cheaper 
transportation. Nature's great gifts to Pennsylvania have been not only 
liberally supplemented in Alabama, but to them have been added every 
possible natural advantage for their cheap development and delivery to 
the markets of the world. If half the capital and business direction that 
have been given to make Pennsylvania peerless in the production ol 
mineral wealth had been given to Alabama, her productive wealth would 
be as great as that of the Iron State, and her population would be nearer 
five millions than the million and a quarter now scattered over the bound- 
less but almost untouched riches of this sunny commonwealth." 

Col. McClure very truthfully says that Alabama is the equal of Penn- 
sylvania in forest, field and mine, and superior in climate, natural high- 
ways and cheapness of product. There is, therefore, no reason why- 
Alabama should not surpass Pennsylvania in wealth and population. 
Our readers can form some idea of how long it will require to do this 
even at the rate of progress that it is how making. 

Alabama— and the South— can grow for generations as rapidly as 
they are now doing, and still the great development will not be overdone. 
In this illustration Alabama is contrasted with Pennsylvania, because 
Alabama has taken the lead in the production of iron and coal in the 
South, but Alabama is in no way superior in resources or in the possi- 
bilities of development to several other Southern States. Tennessee is 
doubtless fully the peer of Alabama in coal, iron and timber; Kentucky 
in coal, timber and agricultural resources ; North Carolina in iron and 



44 THE SOUTH' S REDEMPTION ; 

timber, and Virginia in combined advantages of soil, minerals and 
timber. But these States all have enough, and to spare, and it is un- 
necessary to point out the particular advantages of each one. The South 
has such a peculiar combination of advantages — coal, iron, timber, cotton, 
climate, healthfulness, &c. — a combination which exists nowhere else in 
the world, that it can more than duplicate the coal and iron interests of 
Pennsylvania, the wood-working interests of the Northwest, and the ' 
cotton manufacturing of New England. 



A GENERAL SUMMARY. 

In all other branches of manufacture the South has made equally as 
great progress as in the few leading ones, the statistics of the growth of 
which have been given. From a comparatively small business the manu- 
facture of cotton-seed oil has become one of the most flourishing in the 
South, representing a cash investment of fully $20,000,000, though the 
nominal capital is greatly in excess of that. In 1880 the South had forty 
cotton-seed oil mills, with a capital of $3,504,500 ; there are now 213 mills and 
over $20,000,000 are invested in the business. The lumber industry in all 
its branches, from the small saw mill costing a few hundred dollars to 
the costly furniture factory, has grown probably more rapidly than any 
other line of manufacturing in the South. It is estimated by conservative 
authorities that upwards of $100,000,000 have been invested in the pur- 
chase of Southern timber lands and the building of woodworking 
enterprises since 1880, but this is probably much too small a sum, for the 
sales of timber lands to Northern and Western capitalists run well up 
into the millions of acres every year. 

The mining of phosphate rock has more than doubled, and the man- 
ufacture of fertilizers has now become a leading industry throughout the 
South, especially in connection with cotton-seed oil mills. Thus many 
millions of dollars which formerly went North for fertilizers are kept at 
home. Recent discoveries in Florida have shown that that State has the 
greatest phosphate beds known in the world. Within a few months 
several million dollars have been invested in the purchase of phosphate 
lands, and arrangements are being made to mine and ship the rock on a 
very extensive scale. It is believed, by those who have carefully investi- 
gated the magnitude of these phosphate fields, that they will prove of 
incalculable value not only to Florida but to the whole South. While 
many millions of dollars will be invested in working them, furnishing 
employment to a large number of men, the greatest benefits will result 
through the cheapening of fertilizers to all Southern farmers. This means 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 45 

larger crops produced at a lower cost, and a general improvement of the 
entire agricultural interests. As the development of the iron mines of 
the South has permanently lowered the cost of producing iron in this 
country, thus benefiting the whole country, it is probable that the dis- 
covery of these Florida phosphates will materially reduce the cost of 
fertilizers for the entire country. 

Within the last few years the growth of the early fruit and trucking 
business has been one of the most noticeable features of Southern pro- 
gress. Day after day during the season ocean steamers and full trains of 
cars, freighted with vegetables and fruit, leave the leading Southern 
ports for Northern cities. It is estimated that this business now 
aggregates at least $50,000,000 a year, and it is rapidly expanding. 
With the increase in population and wealth of the country the demand 
for Southern fruits and vegetables steadily grows, and they are no longer 
classed as luxuries, as a few years ago, but are now regarded as necessi- 
ties of life. This industry and the lumber business, which has assumed 
great magnitude in eastern Carolina, in Florida, in South Georgia and in 
Mississippi, are making these sections almost as prosperous and full of life 
and activity as the mineral regions of the Piedmont and mountain sec- 
tions of the South. 

Everywhere and in all lines the South is at work. Its people are 
imbued with a spirit of energy and enterprise never surpassed ; its vast 
resources are being opened up and their development is adding to the 
prosperity of every part of this section, and its manifold attractions and 
advantages are bringing a steady stream of wealth and of men of enter- 
prise to this fair land. What the South has accomplished in the way of 
new industrial enterprises may be seen from the following summary of 
the number organized during four years from January 1, 1886, to Decem- 
ber 31, 1889: 

Iron furnace companies 126 

Machine shops and foundries 441 

Agricultural implement factories 63 

Flour Mills 535 

Cotton Mills.. 267 

Furniture factories 220 

Gasworks .' 101 

Waterworks 331 

Carriage and wagon factories 178 

Electric-light companies 475 

Mining and quarrying enterprises 1,801 

Lumber mills, including saw & planing mills, sash & door factories, stave factories, &c. 3,036 

Ice factories 293 

Canning factories 425 

Stove foundries 25 

Brickworks 565 

Miscellaneous iron and steel works, rolling mills, pipe works, &c 184 

Cotton compresses. 114 

Cotton-seed oil mills 148 

Miscellaneous enterprises not included in foregoing • 4,415 

Total 13, 744 



46 THE SOUTH' S REDEMPTION; 

It may be well to sum up only a few leading points in the South's 
growth during the last few years, as given in the preceding pages, and 
thus convey some general idea of what has been done in that brief period. 

In four years nearly 14,000 new manufacturing and mining enterprises 
have been organized in the South and thousands of old plants greatly 
enlarged. The list of new enterprises extends over almost the whole 
range of human t industry, embracing pig iron furnaces, foundries, machine 
shops, steel works, cotton and woolen mills, cotton-seed oil mills, cotton 
compresses, fruit canning factories, carriage and wagon factories, agri- 
cultural implement factories, flour mills, grist mills, saw mills, planing 
mills, sash, door and blind factories, shuttle factories, handle and spoke 
factories, barrel factories, shingle mills, furniture factories, tobacco 
factories, brick-yards, ice factories, fertilizer factories, stove foundries, 
wire fence factories, lime works, soap factories, tanneries, glass works, 
gas works, distilleries, potteries, electric-light works, marble and slate 
quarrying companies and companies to mine coal, iron ore, gold, silver, 
mica, natural gas, oils, &c. 

The number of national banks has increased from 220, with a capital 
of 145,408,985, in 1879 to 472, with a capital of $76,454,510, in 1889, a more 
rapid percentage of gain than is shown by the rest of the country. 

The railroad mileage of the South has been increased by the 
addition of nearly 20,000 miles since 1880. Since that year over $800,000,000 
have been spent in the building of new roads and improving old ones. 
The assessed value of property has increased over $1,300,000,000. This 
does not show the full increase in the value of property, since there is a 
very large amount of manufacturing property created since 1880 which 
does not appear in the tax assessments, being exempt by law from taxa- 
tion. The increase in the true value of property was over $3,000,000,000. 
In 1880 the South made 397,301 tons of pig iron ; in 1888, 1,132,858, and in 
1889 the output was 1,566,702 tons. 

In 1880, 6,048,571 tons of coal were mined in the South, and in 1889 
the output was over 19,400,000 tons. Cotton mills have increased from 
161, with 14,323 looms and 667,854 spindles, in 1880 to 355 mills, with 45,001 
looms and 2,035,268 spindles, while many new mills are under constructon 
and many old ones being enlarged. In 1880 there were 40 cotton-seed 
oil mills in the South, having a capital of $3,500,000; now there are 213, 
with over $20,000,000 invested. 

The value of the South's agricultural products for 1889 was about 
$850,000,000, against $571,000,000 in 1879. The value of the South's live 
stock on January 1, 1889, was $569,000,000 while in 1880 it was $391,400,000. 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 47 

The production of grain rose from 431,074,630 bushels in 1880 to 652,291,- 
000 bushels in 1889, an increase of over 220,000,000 bushels. 

In every line of industry the same tremendous strides of progress 
are being made. 

Presenting these comparisons in tabular form we have the following : 

1880. 1889. 

Assessed value of property $2,913,436,095 $4,220,166,400 

Railroad mileage 20,612 40,52! 

Cost of railroads $679,000,000 $1,500,000,000 

Yield of cotton, bales 5,755.359 t 7,250,000 

Yield of grain, bushels 431,074,630 652,291,000 

Number of farm animals 28,754,243 45.592.53° 

Value of live stock $391,412,254 $569,161,550 

Value of chief agricultural products. 5571,098,454 $850,000,000 

Coal mined, tons 6,049,471 19,497,418 

Pig iron produced, tons 397.3 01 i.5 66 .7 02 

Phosphate rock mined 190,000 5°7.7o8 

Number of cotton mills 161 355 

Number of spindles 667,854 2,035268 

Number of looms i4.3 2 3 45.°°° 

Number of cotton-seed oil mills 40 213 

Capital invested in cotton-seed oil mills $3,504,000 $20,000,000 

Number of national banks 220- 47 2 

Capital of national banks $45,597.73° $7 6 i454.5*° 

tEstimated. 



SOUTHERN MEN HAVE LED IN THE SOUTH'S 
DEVELOPMENT. 

The statement of Mr. Frederic Taylor, of New York, already quoted, 
to the effect that the industrial advance of the South has thus far been 
mainly through the work of Southern people is undoubtedly true. With 
all due credit to the Northern men who have been active in the develop- 
ment of the South's resources, candor will compel any honest investigator 
to admit that Southern energy and enterprise mainly are entitled to the 
credit for what has been accomplished. Southern men led the way. Out 
of the darkness that developed this section until 1876, they blazed the 
path to prosperity. They built cotton mills and iron furnaces, and 
demonstrated the profitableness of these enterprises. Southern men 
founded and built up Birmingham, which first opened the eyes of the 
world to the marvelous possibilities of this section. When they had done 
this, then Northern capitalists seeing the opportunities for money making 
turned their attention South. 

The people of the South do not lack in energy or enterprise. Since 
the formation of this government they have demonstrated in every line 
of action — in political life, on the battle field, in literature, in science and 
in great commercial undertakings — that in any sphere of life they are the 



4« THE SOUTH' S REDEMPTION; 

peers of the most progressive men of the world. The masses of the 
South have lacked opportunity ; to that alone is due their seeming want 
of energy. The condition of the country prior to the war and for ten or 
fifteen years after its close made agriculture and the professions almost 
the only occupations for employment. The former could at the best yield 
but poor returns where there was no possibility of diversified agriculture 
in its widest sense. With no consumers for diversified farm products it 
would have been a waste of time to raise them. Cotton, and cotton 
alone, was the only crop for which a market could always be found. 

The Northern farmer is enterprising. He raises fruits and vegetables 
and engages in dairying and kindred enterprises because he has a home 
market for these things. The Southern farmer had none and could not 
create one. He might deplore his enforced idleness when he saw his 
family in want, but that would not bring him buyers for his eggs or 
chickens or fruit when there was no one in his section to consume them. 
The almost unlimited amount of work for the mechanics and day laborers 
generally at the North enabled every man to find something to do. In 
the South there was almost an entire absence of work of this character. 
Men hung around the village stores because there was no work to be had 
which would yield them any returns. With the development of manufac- 
tures there came a great change. The opportunity for work had come, 
and the way in which the people who had hitherto been idlers rushed to 
the factories, the furnaces and wherever employment could be secured 
demonstrated that they only needed the chance to prove their energy. 

No sadder sight was ever seen than that of the tens and hundreds of 
thousands of Southern people, men and women, suffering in the deepest 
poverty which followed the war, and yet forced by circumstances beyond 
their power to change, to remain in idleness. It was enough to crush the 
life out of them. The greatest blessing that industrial activity has 
brought to the South is that it is daily creating new work for thousands 
of hitherto idle hands, and creating a home market wherever a furnace 
or a factory is started for all the diversified products of the farm. The 
latent energy of the people has been stimulated into activity, and the 
whole South is at work. 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 49 

CORROBORATIVE TESTIMONY AS TO THE SOUTH'S 

DEVELOPMENT BY LEADING PUBLIC MEN. 

When the Special Bankers' Edition of the Manufacturers' Record 
was sent out in December, copies were mailed to the President of the 
United States, to the several members of the cabinet, and to many Sena- 
tors and Representatives. In every case the paper was accompanied by 
a letter of advice that it had been sent, and an intimation to the recipient 
that if willing to give public expression to his views upon the future of 
the South, or upon the progress made since 1880, as set forth in that pub- 
lication, a letter to that effect would be appreciated. Many letters of 
response were received, and with a view to showing how fully the South's 
progress is appreciated by leading public men, some of these letters are 
published. These letters are strong endorsements of the remarkable 
advancement of the South, and of the work of the Manufacturers' Record 
in making known to the world the wonderful resources of that favored 

land. 

Executive Mansion, 

Washington, D. C, December 20, 1889. 
Editor Manufacturers' Record : 

Dear Sir — Allow me to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of the 
19th inst., and to express to you the President's thanks for your friendly 
courtesy in sending to him the copy of the Manufacturers' Record con- 
taining the article on "The South's Redemption." 

Very truly yours, 




Private Secretary. 

Vice-President's Chamber, 

Washington, January 10, 1890. 
Editor Manufacturers' Record: 

Dear Sir — The rapid development of the South in all lines of com- 
mercial enterprise, as shown by the record of the last decade, proves 
that it is not solely an agricultural section, but the home of a great 
diversity of industries. This fact brings the South in line with all sections 
of the country, and the result is sure to be mutually beneficial. I have 
read with pleasure recent statements in the Manufacturers' Record bear- 



50 THE SOUTH' S REDEMPTION / 

ing upon the renewed prosperity and rapid development of new enter- 
prises in the South. Yours very truly, 



Department of State, 

Washington, January n, 1S90. 
Editor Manufacturers' Record : 

Dear Sir — You could not be engaged in a more patriotic work than 
in making known to the world the rich and varied resources of the 
Southern States of the Union. Believing that you are promoting this end 
in the Manufacturers' Record, I heartily wish you success in extending 
the circulation of your valuable magazine. 

Yery respectfully, 



^S^-«^r^-^r^^ 



Treaslrv Department, 

Washington, January 2, 1890. 
Editor Manufacturers' Record : 

My Dear Sir — My attention has recently been called to the Manu- 
facturers' Record, which seems to be especially devoted to the industries 
of the South, and I have taken much pleasure in looking over the last 
few issues of this journal. On almost every page there is to be found 
evidence of the progress of material affairs which has been made in that 
section, and indications are plentiful of still greater development of those 
resources which go far towards making a people prosperous and con- 
tented. This remarkable growth in the commercial and industrial life of 
the Southern States is exceedingly gratifying, and is a splendid illustra- 
tion of the beneficent results of the American principle of protection 
which has stood guard against the menacing and destructive influences 
of the old world, while factories and mines are being successfully oper- 
ated in the new. That the efforts of your paper may do much to aid in 
the good work at the South I have no doubt, and you have my best 
wishes for abundant success. 

Wry truly yours, 



f^v^Hn^ 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 51 

Postoffice Department, 
Office of Postmaster-General, 

Washington, D. C, January n, 1890. 
Editor Manufacturers' Record: 

My Dear Sir — The industrial advancement of the South, as shown in 
the pages of the Special Bankers' Edition of the Manufacturers' Record, 
which you have been good enough to send me, is indeed marvelous. 
The hope of any country, or of any part of any country, is in the honest 
industry of its people. If to this quality can be added the courageous 
enterprise which plans and carries forward, and the liberal thrift which 
spends as well as saves, there can be no question, I should think, of the 
complete prosperity of the Southern States of the Union to which North- 
ern sentiment and good fellowship, as well as Northern capital, are 
more and more reaching out. 
With great respect, dear sir, 

Yours most truly, 



%jhin^ 



Department of the Interior, 

Washington, January 13, 1890. 
Editor Manufacturers 1 Record: 

Sir — In reading your valuable journal my attention has been called to 
the vast growth of all the material interests of the South, and this depart- 
ment contains within it much that is benefited by this advancement. 
Your journal commends itself as one of national importance, giving much 
information affecting public interests not otherwise obtainable. 

In the last annual report of this department attention was called to 
the great advance in the educational interests. It appears from the sta- 
tistics of the public schools for the decade 1876-77 to 1886-S7 that the 
growth of the public school system, considering the whole country, out- 
stripped the growth of the population. The excess of this increase of 
enrollment over the increase in population 6 to 14 years of age was 2.1 
per cent., and was due to the progress of the public schools, particularly 
in the South Central Division. The increase there of enrollment (83.4 
per cent.) shows an increase over the increase of population (36.8 per 
cent.) of 46.6 per cent. Much more was said in the report tending to 
support the general proposition here made. 



52 THE SOUTH' S REDEMPTION' ; 

The exhibitions made in your journal connected with this advance in 
education and intelligence give assurance of an early and rapid develop- 
ment of all the great resources of the South. It would take more time 
than I now have at command to speak in detail of the great landed inter- 
ests this department has under its control, and which are rapidly being 
disposed of in the Southern States ; but the constant and continuous 
increase in the demand for homes under the general laws of the United 
States is a cheering indication of the future of that portion of our com- 
mon country. With intelligence, industry and the resources for devel- 
opment there found, the greatest assurance may be felt that the career on 
which the "New South" has entered will be maintained and perpetuated 
if justice is administered to all alike, and the right of each man to his 
own preserved. These are the foundations at last of all prosperity, and 
1 am confident in the hope that they will not fail the Southern people. 

With the best wishes for the success of your paper and the advance- 
ment of all the interests that you advocate. 

Yours most respectfully. 



Department of Agriculture, 
Office of the Secretary, 

Washington, D. C, December 30, 1889. 
Editor Manufacturers' Record: 

Dear Sir — I am in receipt of your valued favor of the 20th inst., 
together with the special copy of the Manufacturers'' Record, containing 
a most interesting review of the industrial, railroad and financial progress 
of the South during the last ten years. I am greatly obliged to you for 
this copy of your valuable paper, and I have read the review which fur- 
nishes such remarkable testimony as to the future development of the 
South with the closest attention and no less gratification. 

To refer with any approach to detail to the varied industrial topics 
covered by the review would be quite impossible within the limits of an 
ordinary letter. I will merely say a word then on that subject which is 
naturally of the greatest personal interest to myself — agriculture. In 
this department of your great industrial development it is especially 
gratifying to observe the effort on the part of the Southern farmers to 
diversify their products. The supremacy which the South possesses in 
the markets of the world as a cotton-producing country there seems little 
reason to suppose it will ever forfeit, and yet, in this age of wonderful 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 53 

industrial development, it is well for those who think that they stand to 
beware lest they fall, and self-interest as well as public weal enjoins that 
we should ever seek to attain the highest standard in everything that we 
produce. The natural facilities of the South for the production of this 
great cotton crop, aided and directed by the intelligence which constantly 
seeks improvement, must assure for all time the supremacy of our South- 
ern States as the cotton-producing region of the world. The South has 
a climate and a soil well adapted to producing all the crops necessary to 
provide its inhabitants with food, and the rapid increase in its production 
of cereals during the past few years is extremely gratifying, and so, also, 
is the wonderful increase in value of live stock ; and in this connection I 
would call your attention to the special importance of the horse, dairy 
and sheep interests. The great development of your manufacturing 
interests in the South will soon create an extraordinary demand for 
heavy draft horses. There is no reason why this demand should not be 
supplied by Southern farmers if they will prepare for it in time. In the 
dairy interests many sections of the South have already given evidence 
of most gratifying progress, and I can only say that with the early estab- 
lishment in this department of a division devoted especially to the dairy, 
it will be my pleasure, as well as my duty, to aid this development to the 
fullest extent possible. With reference to the sheep, I notice in this 
branch of live stock, and in this alone, a falling off in values between 
1879 and 1889. I trust that the forthcoming decade will show a very 
different record, and that, in the meantime, Southern farmers will give 
more attention than heretofore to the raising of mutton sheep, for which, 
I am satisfied, a great many sections of the South are peculiarly well 
adapted. 

The subject is almost an inexhaustible one, but to say one-half of what 
I would like to say in regard to the magnificent field which the South 
affords to American intelligence and American energy would quite trans- 
cend the limits of a letter. I will conclude, therefore, by expressing 
once more my profound gratification at the magnificent showing made 
bv your interesting review, and congratulating you upon the admirable 
manner in which you have arrayed these startling facts and figures for 
the information of the American public. 

I remain, very truly yours. 




Ul.ua^t^^ 



Secretary 



54 THE SOUTH' S REDEMPTION ; 

United States Senate, 

Washington, D. C, December 23, 1889. 
Editor Manufacturers' Record : 

Dear Sir — Your favor of the 19th inst., together with a copy of the 
Manufacturers' Record, has been received. I have not been unmindful 
of the industrial growth of the South for several years, and have been 
accustomed to look at your paper for valuable statistics in relation 
thereto, and your latest Manufacturers' Record furnishes a very exhaust- 
ive account of the progress the South has made within the last twenty 
years. You will please accept my cordial thanks. 

Very truly yours, 



^Jt^AlX- £^U*~~4*~ 



United States. Senate, 

Washington, D. C, January 10, 1890. 
Editor Manufacturers' Record : 

Dear Sir — I have looked over with much interest the remarkable 
statements in the special edition of the Manufacturers' Record of Decem- 
ber 21, 1889, concerning the growth of the Southern States in the 
production of pig iron, the manufacture of cotton goods and lumber, the 
building of railroads and towns, coal mining, grain raising and banking. 
You are right ; in some of these things "the history of many Southern 
towns in the last five years reads almost like a romance." I am glad to 
see the Manufacturers' Record making this exposition of resources and 
growth ; it will accelerate progress. And I wish more of the capitalists 
who are exploring what Judge Kelly called "the coming El Dorado of 
American adventure" would come to a "realizing sense" of the magni- 
tude and extraordinary variety of resources of my native State — North 
Carolina. I had occasion to give them considerable study in preparation 
for an address at the State Fair in Raleigh a few years ago. North 
Carolina's ranges of climates, soils, fauna and flora and minerals are 
unequaled by those of any other State. That is a broad and strong- 
statement. Put it to the test of a thorough examination. 

Hastily yours, 




FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 55 

United States Senate, 

Washington, D. C, January 10, 1890. 
Editor Manufacturers Record : 

Dear Sir— I have read with much satisfaction the information con- 
tained in the Manufacturers' Record of the rapid advance of the various 
branches of manufacture in the South. The progress made is almost 
marvelous, and I trust is but a beginning of a still greater advance in the 
same direction — a diversity of production in a country formerly almost 
exclusively agricultural. The success of varied mechanical industries 
will induce a greater variety of agricultural products, and will bring to 
the South that which is most wanted there — a home market for home 
products. I trust this prosperity will tend to settle the race conflict upon 
a fair basis, for with a diversity of pursuits the negro will become more 
valuable, more independent and more worthy of the rights and privileges 
of freedom. The prosperity of one section leads to the prosperity of all, 
and personally I rejoice in every hopeful sign of prosperity in the South 
as much as in the North, or in the state of Ohio, in which I live. 
Yerv trulv vours, 



J0Z~, 



United States Senate, 

Washington, D. C, December 22, 1889. 
Editor Manufacturers' Record : 

My Dear Sir — Accept my thanks for a copy of the Manufacturers' 
Record containing information as to the progress of the South, which is 
exceedingly interesting. There is not in the history of the world a 
progress so marvelous as that of the Southern people since the war. 

I do not mean by this to convey the idea that there has not been in 
other countries a material progress in certain eras equal to that made by 
the Southern people during the time I have mentioned ; but when we 
consider the circumstances which have environed the South since the 
war, the increase of material wealth is without a parallel in the history of 
nations. 

If the charges made by the partisan press of the North be true — that 
the Southern people are systematically engaged in oppressing the negro, 
and that they spend their days in scheming for that purpose, and their 
nights in murder and intimidation — then they are beyond question the 
most remarkable race of people who have existed upon the face of 



56 THE SOUTH' S REDEMPTION ; 

the earth. If these charges were true it would follow that the Southern 
people are able to violate all the laws which properly govern social and 
economic conditions, and at the same time attain a degree of prosperity 
which amazes the world. 

No intelligent man, not blinded with partisan passion and prejudice, 
will believe any such thing. On the other hand, the progress made by 
the South is a complete and logical refutation of the miserable slang and 
falsehood used by demagogues in the North for political purposes. 

It is simply impossible that a people addicted to the practices por- 
trayed by the Northern press and re-hashed in the halls of Congress, 
could use the oppressed and sullen labor of the negro to bring about the 
amazing results contained in the special copy of the Manufacturers' 
Record which you have been kind enough to send me. 

This prosperity has been brought about by the exertions of the 
Southern people alone, and if it is to continue in that section it must be 
done by the same agencies, unvexed by the interference of the Federal 
Government. It seems to me that this phase of the question is far 
more interesting than any other. 

Very truly, &c, 



/f. if, #jw-/t- 



United States Senate, 

Washington, I). C, December 27, 1889. 
Editor Manufacturers' Record : 

Dear Sir — I am obliged for your kindness in sending me a copy of 
the Manufacturers' Record of December 21. It, like other copies that 
have come under my notice, contains varied and most valuable informa- 
tion as to the wonderful industrial progress which is being made in the 
Southern States of the Union. If the Manufacturers' Record could have 
a general circulation through those States it could not fail to do much 
good by stimulating enterprise and by pointing out places and business 
for investments. It would advise our people of their unlimited sources 
of wealth and prosperity, and of how to utilize them. 
Very respectfully, 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 57 

House of Representatives, 

Washington, D. C, January 4, 1890. 
My Dear Sir— Not until quite recently did I find time to read, with 
that care which its importance demanded, the copy of the Manufacturers' 
Record you were kind enough to send me, containing a review of pro- 
gress at the South during the last ten years. As a Southern man, deeply 
interested in the welfare of my section, I beg to thank you for the care 
with which you have collected, and the judgment with which you have 
displayed the figures which tell so eloquently what our people are doing, 
and I am especially glad that you have not failed to show that the devel- 
opment at the South has been principally, up to this point, the work of 
Southern men, and that Northern capital has now begun to come in, 
simply because Southern enterprise has shown what our resources are. 
I wish a million copies of the number you sent me were distributed 
throughout the North. It would aid vastly in the great work which we 
have now only fairly commenced. The record your paper will make at 
the close of 1899 will be, I have no doubt, far more wonderful than that 
of to-day. The decade upon which we are entering is to demonstrate 
that England can no longer control the iron markets of the world. 
Speculation has been busy for some time as to the causes contributing 
to the recent remarkable rise of iron in Great Britain. The better 
opinion, it seems to me, is that which holds that England has perma- 
nently exhausted her capacity to compete with the fresh fields of enter- 
prise we are now opening up in the South. Though we differ among 
ourselves about the rates of tariff on foreign goods brought into this 
country, yet we all agree in being thankful that no tariff laws can pre- 
vent us from seeking with our iron the markets of the North and the West. 
In 1900 we shall be rejoicing that our ancestors provided in the consti- 
tution that no duty should be placed on exports, for then we will be 
exporting iron and steel, probably even to Europe. No law can impede 
our progress, unless Congress should, by such a stretch of power as in 
1867, deprive us of the honest and economical State governments which 
now insure our peace and prosperity, and this is not to be expected. 

Very truly yours, 

7- 



58 THE SOUTirS REDEMPTION ; 

House of Representatives, U. S., 

Washington, D. C, January 17, 1890. 
Editor Manufacturers' Record : 

Those who have given consideration to the matter of the industrial 
development in the South during the last ten years, and have pressed 
their investigation in this direction, have marvelled at the tremendous 
strides which have been made under the fostering benefits of the 
principle of "protection to American industries." Alabama has become 
the third in rank among, the iron producing States of the Union, and 
to-day that one State produces more iron than the entire South did four 
years ago, the first six months of 1889 production of iron in Alabama 
being over double that of the first six months of 1888. 

The manufacture and sale of cypress shingles in Louisiana has been 
phenomenal, and the steadily growing demand for cypress lumber and 
shingles seems to exceed the rapidly increasing supply. The production 
of Louisiana's rice has steadily developed from 284,000 sacks in 1877-8 to 
619,000 sacks in 1889-90 (up to January 10, 1890), and while the proposition 
may seem bold— with the present protection continued — Louisiana will 
be able in a comparatively short time to supply the entire United States 
with all the sugar and rice consumed in the United States. 

By the completion of the Muscle Shoals Canal in the Tennessee 
river, coal may be floated down stream to the Mississippi river and thence 
to New Orleans at a price that will, by competition with Alabama coal, 
force the price of fuel down to such a low figure that New Orleans will 
surely become not only great commercially, but of great importance as a 
manufacturing city. In 1880 there were in New Orleans 915 manufactur- 
ing establishments, employing 8,404 hands, with a product of |i8,8o9,ooo. 
In 1889, year ending August 31, there were 2,998 establishments, employ- 
ing 24,297 hands, and with a product of 144,923,000. Much of the indus- 
trial development in the South has been due to the persistent and 
successful efforts of the Manufacturers' Record, which, by its vigilance 
and enterprise, has informed, stimulated and encouraged a great many 
who have become important factors in this wonderful march of indus- 
trial progress; 

Stimulated by your success and animated by a laudable ambition to 

lead, I can realize the tremendous influence to-day exerted by your 

efforts towards continued Southern progress and industrial development. 

Assuring you of my hearty sympathy in your laudable efforts, I remain, 

Very sincerely yours, 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 59 

House of Representatives, U. S., 

Washington, D. C, January 13, 1890. 
Editor Manufacturers' Record : 

Dear Sir— The Manufacturers' Record containing a review of the 
industrial, railroad and financial progress in the South during the last 
ten years was duly received and read with the deepest interest — I might 
almost say enthusiasm. I have always regarded the Manufacturers' 
Record as indispensable to anyone who wishes to form an intelligent idea 
of the changes which are taking place in the South. Accept my thanks 
for your kindness, and belive me, Very truly yours, 



^^__ ^/l^ 



House of Representatives, U. S., 

Washington, I). C, January 14* l8 9°- 
Editor Manufacturers' Record : 

. My Dear Sir— I am greatly interested in the industrial progress of the 
South, and I have watched it with exceeding interest and care. I never 
doubted that what has occured would be witnessed by our generation. 

From the discovery of the continent until the termination of the war 
all the accumulated surplus of the South found investment in lands and 
slaves. The country was so new and the lands so fertile that the induce- 
ments to put Southern capital into land and into the labor disciplined by- 
ownership were so great as to prevent it finding any other investment ; 
and the peculiar form of planting in the cotton and sugar States gave to 
anyone who engaged in it ample occupation for any gifts he might have. 

The emancipation of the negro necessarily changed all this, and 
required some other investments to be found and some other vocations 
to be followed. The peculiar climate of the South, which permits those 
residing within its territory to live at so economical a rate, the exhaust- 
less mineral resources, the enormous lumber interests, the unusual river 
capacity for transportation, rendered it certain that as soon as the losses of 
the war were repaired the development there would seem to be marvel- 
ous. This will continue. 

There was before the war a general impression in the North that the 
slave labor of the South was a competitor of the skilled labor of the 
North. There never was a greater mistake. The skilled labor of the 
North took the raw material furnished by the unskilled labor of the 
South, and without competition inside of our boundary, turned it into 
the finished fabric. This was terminated bv the war, and the daily in- 



60 THE SOUTH' S REDEMPTION ; 

creasing skill of the Southern labor will furnish competition to the 
skilled labor of the North, and perhaps upon conditions which will make 
it dangerous. 

1 therefore have never doubted, and do not now doubt, the constant 
and rapid development of the South in all industrial enterprises, and I 
think before the termination of this century it will be found that we are 
only on the threshold of that development. 
I am, very truly yours, 



jfctt&L 




House of Representatives, U. S., 

Washington, D. C, December 26, 1889. 
Editor Manufacturers' Record : 

My Dear Sir — I have not had time to do more than give the paper a 
cursory inspection, but enough to satisfy me that a great and much and 
long-needed work is being effectively done by you in behalf of the grow- 
ing South. The possibilities of the South are incalculable ; her progress 
during the present decade (i. e., since 1880) is a sure guarantee of a 
development of resources and enhancement of values which will amaze 
those who have not made note of it, and make her the wonder and envy 
of those who were wont to traduce and embarass her. The madness and 
wickedness of political folly may impede for a time the growth of her 
industries and enterprises, but her prosperous career and ultimate 
triumph are assured. The hope of such success is based upon facts 
which cannot be removed or nullified, viz : the presence throughout her 
borders of a brave, intelligent, self-reliant people, and the possession of 
resources and an environment fixed and unsurpassed. I am rather too 
far advanced in life to change my residence and too poor in this world's 
goods (ready cash particularly) to give material aid to any enterprise 
there or elsewhere, otherwise, I would be there and with my money ; 
but while I live, either in public or private life, my voice and vote will be 
given in her behalf and interest, and I will always hail with special 
delight any agency which is devoted to the advancement and welfare of 
the South. I know of no agency more potent in that direction than the 
Manufacturers' Record. Very respectfully yours, 



A 



a—« Q^-h^- 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 61 

House of Representatives, U. S., 

Washington, D. C, January 17, 1890. 
Editor Mamtfacturers' Record: 

Dear Sir — I have been an occasional reader of your journal for some 
considerable time past. It is one of the useful publications of the day. 
Its mission in bringing to light the heretofore hidden resources of the 
South is a grand one. The development of these resources, now in its 
infancy, presents to the world a two-fold marvel. They exist in marvel- 
ous quantities, qualities and varieties. This development under the 
"American system of a protective tariff" has added another marvel by 
showing their value and tremendous force in building up and making 
that section rich. 

Tennessee and Pennsylvania are very nearly equal in their respective 
numbers of square miles as well as in geography, topography and the 
like. Pennsylvania has coal, iron and some timber. Tennessee has 
coal, iron, marble, copper, zinc, lead, mica and an abundance of timber 
already known, with gold in some localities in paying quantities. There 
is not another spot on the face of the globe containing more natural 
wealth than Tennessee — notably the eastern portion of the State. Take 
Knoxville, in East Tennessee, as a center, and draw a circle of one hun- 
dred and fifty miles every way all around it, thus making the circle three 
hundred miles in diameter, and Knoxville will stand in that center sur- 
rounded by a section containing more natural elements of wealth than 
are to be found in any other part of the known world. No such natural 
elements of wealth are to be found in Pennsylvania, and yet the manu- 
facturing industries, the iron, coal and development of that State, 
and the story of her wealth have been told and retold in every civilized 
community, while Tennessee, with greater resources in quantity, variety 
and quality, has been unheard of as a manufacturing State until quite 
recently. And why ? Because the one State had taken advantage of the 
American policy of a protective tariff and engaged in manufacturing, 
and thus secured other developments, which follow wherever manufac- 
tures are established. The resources of Tennessee lay in the earth and 
on the earth until such journals as the Manufacturers' Record unfolded 
their marvelous existence, and thus attracted capital and inspired enter- 
prise and caused the magic touch of modern development to be applied. 
To-day Tennessee begins to rival Pennsylvania. If the American policy 
is maintained, to-morrow she will pass the Keystone State in the progress 
and the attainment of riches by her people, by reason of the develop- 
ment of her more abundant resources. 



62 THE SOUTirs REDEMPTION j 

I write to commend and not to argue. The mere statement of the 
tacts makes the argument complete. Maintain the protective tariff and 
thus secure the development of Southern resources, and all the States 
of the Union will be blessed through the practical operation of the 
American policy. A protective tariff is an American measure. It is the 
conception of a free — a great people. I want to thank you for urging the 
maintenance of the American tariff. It belongs to America, and Ameri- 
cans should see to it that it is not destroyed The half has not been, and 
cannot be told of what it is doing for the South. The resources of that 
section are inexhaustible, and as a native to the manor born, I wish to 
urge you to continue in making the new revelation, so that section may 
bloom and boom, as it will by more thorough development. 
Very respectfully, &c. 




House of Representatives, U. S., 

Washington, D. C, January 20, 1890. 
Editor Manufacturers' Record : 

Dear Sir — Your special edition of the Manufacturers' Record of the 
21st December last, setting forth the progress of the South in mining and 
manufacturing enterprises, makes a splendid showing of the great devel- 
opment now going on in the Southern States and will no doubt be of 
very great interest to that large number of our citizens who have invested 
or are looking to investments in that portion of our country. The array 
of facts and figures that you produce will astonish many of our country- 
men North and West, and they are certainly a source of gratification and 
pride to all friends of the South. 

I have been very greatly impressed recently by the attention that is 
being given by mining and moneyed men to the splendid deposits of iron 
and other minerals found in such abundance through that whole section 
of South Carolina lying between the North Carolina line and the pros- 
perous city of Spartanburg. A number of thriving towns have grown up 
along the line of the Charleston, Cincinnati & Chicago and the Charlotte 
& Atlanta Air Line Railroads, and large investments of capital have been 
made by enterprising men in the extensive mineral lands of this section 
which are now being opened up with most encouraging results. 



FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. 63 

The development in that portion of the State — particularly in the 
counties of York, Union and Spartanburg — is largely due to the attention 
that has been drawn to it through the enterprise of the Manufacturers 1 
Record. Let me hope that you will continue the good work in which 
you are engaged with benefit both to yourself and the country. 
Most respectfully yours, 



cA^t>.JkP^^^y^C<.l S-<^ 



House of Representatives, I'. S., 

Washington, D. C, December 24, 1S89. 
Editor Manufacturers' 1 Record: 

Dear Sir — I have looked through your issue with considerable care, 
and with very great interest. Your summary of the progress of the 
Southern States is a very important work, I trust it will be widely dis- 
tributed throughout the whole country. It is thoroughly calculated to 
give, in the most practical manner, better information on the condition 
and sentiment of our Southern States. Judging from my personal know- 
ledge of some of the localities upon which you report, I am prepared to 
believe that your statements are exceedingly conservative, and that if 
anything, they underestimate the progress of the Southern localities. 
Your work is an exceedingly valuable one, and your periodical has 
steadily attracted my attention as one of very great value to the South, 
and, indeed, to the whole country. It is, of course, perfectly idle for 
fanatics and fault-finders to talk to reasonable men, such as the American 
people are, about their favorite hobbies in the face of such gratifying 
practical information as you spread before them. 

Very truly yours, 



c. /. /IL. 



V 






Y. 



TO THOSE LOOKING FOR 



]VT ai^af acttiriijo gites 

* IN * THE • SOUTH. * 



^ThE MOST DESIRABLE LOCATIONS in the South 
-^~ for manufacturing wagons, stoves, agricultural imple- 
ments, furniture, or for foundries, machine shops, rolling 
mills, muck bar mills, nail works, glass works, cotton or woolen 
mills, and tanneries, are to be found in Virginia along the line 
of the Norfolk & Western Railroad, from Norfolk to Bristol, 
and upon its branch lines. Hardwood of every variety ; pig 
iron from the furnaces at Lynchburg (2), Roanoke (2 in opera- 
tion and 1 now under construction), Pulaski (1), Radford (1 to 
be built in 1890), Salem, Graham and Max Meadows (1 at each 
point now under construction), Bristol (1 to be built in 1890); 
bar iron from the rolling mills at Roanoke and Lynchburg; 



coke and semi-bituminous coal from the Pocahontas Flat Top 
field; superior gas coals from the mines on the Clinch Valley 
Extension ; glass sand from Tazewell county ; cotton from the 
markets of the Southern States, and wool from all the Western 
and Southwestern States and Territories at advantageous freight 
rates. Favorable freight rates made upon raw materials to all 
factories established upon its line, as well as to points in the 
United States and Territories upon the manufactured articles. 

Those seeking new fields for manufacturing establishments 
should not fail to investigate the wonderful development of iron, 
coal and coke industries that have been made within the past 
five years along the line of the Norfolk & Western Railroad 
and the advantages offered by the State of Virginia in the sup- 
ply of cheap raw materials; by the Norfolk & Western Rail- 
road in the matter of freight facilities and rates upon raw 
materials and for reaching home, far distant and foreign mar- 
kets, and by the cities and towns along its line in the way of 
advantageous sites at moderate cost. Many of the cities and 
towns exempt manufacturing establishments from taxation for 
a series of years. For further information as to freight rates 
and sources of supply of raw materials apply to A. POPE, 
General Freight Agent, Roanoke, Va., or to 

CHAS. G. EDDY, 

Vice-President, Roanoke, Va. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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